Muggle
by KaleidescopeCat
Summary: The Dursleys are as normal as normal can be, and the Potters as eccentric... but before Potter, before Dursley, there were Petunia and Lily Evans, two sisters, neither of whom were quite as ordinary as they claimed. This is Petunia's story.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters belong to J.K. Rowling. I am merely borrowing them.

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MUGGLE

Prologue

_Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable._

_-Sydney J. Harris_

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Petunia Dursley was not a happy woman.

Considering her present situation, most people would be inclined to sympathize. After all, who wouldn't be upset if they had found their nephew in a basket on the front porch? Who wouldn't be distraught at the death of their only sister? Anyone else would be drowned in grief, and rightfully so, unable to comprehend the inexplicable moments that had led to this world-shattering event.

Petunia Dursley was most certainly not a happy woman. To the outside observer, she was reacting in a perfectly normal way, just like everyone else, upon learning of the death of a loved one.

But though she hid it well, Petunia Dursley was not like everyone else.

She looked at her nephew, silently playing with the toys Dudley had gotten bored with already, and clutched a piece of parchment in one hand, so tightly that her knuckles turned white. The little brat had her sister's eyes, wide and green and wondering, though all his other features favored James Potter. Petunia had only met him a few times, but she could see the resemblance nonetheless.

Her nails punched through the parchment in her hand, right through to the skin of her palm, and she drew a sharp breath at the sudden prick of pain. She couldn't look at Harry any longer; she was already furious, boiling with a rage so deep and vicious that it surprised her. Petunia had a temper to be certain, and it snapped often, but never lasted long at all.

This, though... she could maintain a semblance of grief on the outside, but inside she was seething mad, and had been in the same state since they had discovered the newest addition to the family sitting on the doorstep.

With a quick glance at Dudley, who was wresting the fire engine out of Harry's hands, she fled upstairs.

In the back of her closet, lurking behind heels and tennis shoes and boots, a plain brown box sat waiting. It was dusty, possibly the one dusty thing in the entire Dursley household, but instead of attacking it with a feather duster she merely opened the lid and sat looking at the objects inside.

On top a wizarding photograph of Lily and James, dancing through the fallen leaves of autumn. Petunia wondered vaguely when it had been taken; probably sometime before the wedding, since she remembered receiving it with a crisp white marriage announcement.

"Oh, Lily," she sighed, running a finger down the smooth edge of the photograph.

The anger was slipping away, despite the fact that here was the subject of her wrath right in front of her. All Petunia could think of now was the little girl she had known before they had started quarreling, before Hogwarts and all the wizarding world tomfoolery, when they had been just sisters and not competitors.

"I'm sorry," said Petunia to the photograph, faintly guilty because she was not acting as a normal person should. "Vernon is angry because you dumped Harry on us... I suppose I'm angry about that, too, but not really in the same way. You never did listen to me, Lily, never at all, and look what happened."

The anger swelled up again for a moment. "You'd think," snapped Petunia, "that I'd be gloating, because I was right about what was going to happen and you weren't. For once in our lives I was right, and for once I wouldn't have cared about being wrong."

She set the photograph down, the little picture-Lily flashing her a joyous smile as she twirled in James' arms, and reached once more into the box. A cloth-wrapped bundle came out, bringing with it a shower of dust and mothballs and a strong smell of ancient incense. The spicy smell drifted around Petunia's nostrils for a long moment, and she sat still, trembling, before finally drawing the cloth away from the object inside.

"Lily, I wish you had listened to me," said Petunia softly. Her hands drifted over the smooth crystal, but she did not dare look down for fear of what she might see. The ball sat on her lap, gleaming with some mysterious internal light, calling to her to look down and _see_...

With a heavy sigh she drew the cloth back over the crystal ball and put it back in its box. If the letter was true, then it would be safe to use it once more, but Petunia had too long been cautious. And besides, Vernon was due home soon—if he caught her with the crystal, there would be many more explanations required than she cared to give.

But as Petunia went downstairs and wearily began to make supper, she could not stop her mind from dwelling on the past. Choices made, arguments lost, and nothing at all gained... Today she had received a letter telling her what she did not want to hear. Bad things always came in letters; everything that went wrong in Petunia's life had started with a letter.

A long time ago, another letter had told her something else she did not want to hear...

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	2. An Unexpected Messenger

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters belong to J.K. Rowling. I am merely borrowing them.

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MUGGLE

Chapter One: An Unexpected Messenger

_It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves._

_-William Shakespeare_

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"...And you'll want to stay away from Lydia Hargrove and Amelia Kay, they'll be fifth-years this fall and they're always simply awful to the new girls, but don't worry, I'll point them out to you and you can avoid them. Oh, and that's Madeline Mulberry, she's quite a character, too. She snuck out of school grounds to meet her boyfriend all the time last year—he's nineteen and he has a motorcycle—and once she nearly got caught by the night janitor when she was coming back and had to spend the entire night in the gymnasium under the bleachers."

Lily shook her head in wonder as Petunia paused for breath, looking at the pages of her elder sister's yearbook with the awe of a little girl about to go off to boarding school for the first time. "How do you find all these things out, Pet?" she asked, tracing the letters on the front cover.

"Oh, it's not difficult," said Petunia with a tone that suggested she made it look much easier than it really was. "Keep your eyes and your ears open, that's what I always do, Lil. You'll be perfectly all right, and school's really great fun."

"I'm a little worried," said Lily, staring at the red brick building, all overgrown with ivy, emblazoned on the cover of the yearbook. "Just nerves about going to a new place, I suppose."

Petunia couldn't help a secret swell of pleasure at her little sister's words. Lily was always the more outgoing one of the two; even though Petunia knew everything about everyone and had her fair share of friends, she never managed to match Lily's attitude towards people. It was as if her little sister simply assumed everyone in the world was already her best friend and they merely hadn't caught up with each other in a while.

But Petunia never let her jealousy at Lily's easy way with everyone show, because she, along with the rest of the world, had fallen under the little girl's spell. Lily and Petunia were fast friends, despite the occasional spat (which, as any sister will know, is completely unavoidable no matter how well they might get along). "Don't worry, Lil," Petunia said, patting her sister's red curls, "I've been at St. Mary's for two years already. I know my way around and I'll show you everything. Everyone will say, there goes Petunia's sister, what a cool girl she is!"

"Ha-ha, no, they'll say look, there's _Lily's _sister, what a cool girl that Lily is!"

"Oh, you brat!" Petunia tossed a pillow at her and ducked as Lily returned fire, giggling madly.

A few minutes later, both gasping for breath between laughs, they collapsed on the carpet. "I can't wait for school this year," said Petunia weakly, holding her sides as she tried to stop giggling. "We'll have so much fun with both of us there! The Evans sisters strike again!"

"Double trouble!" Lily grinned and swatted her with a pillow once more, and of course that started the whole thing over again, until a cough at the door caught both girls' attention. Without warning one of the pillows burst open as Lily, startled, jumped to her feet. Feathers floated down from the ceiling and dusted the sisters in a coating of white fluff.

"Are your pillows ever going to recover, Petunia dear?" said Mrs. Evans, smirking at her daughters' antics. Covered in feathers, they resembled nothing less than a pair of clucking chickens.

"No, Mum, I think they've got to go to hospital," said Lily, shaking the pillow with an anguished expression. "Code blue! Oh no, they're slipping away! Noooo! Live! Live!" She put a hand to her forehead and collapsed dramatically onto the floor.

"I think lots and lots of drama classes for you, Lily," said Mrs. Evans, rolling her eyes. "Here. You got a letter, dear, and you got your forms and booklist from St. Mary's, Petunia."

Petunia gazed curiously at the green-inked letter in Mrs. Evans' hand, with a wax seal holding shut the pale yellow parchment envelope. "Who on earth is that from?" she asked, taking her own mail from her mother.

"It says Hogwarts," said Lily absently, ripping open the seal. She read the letter quickly, her forehead crinkling in confusion. "This has to be a joke, Mum. This says it's from Hogwarts School of _Witchcraft and Wizardry._"

"Witchcraft and Wizardry?" Petunia asked incredulously. "There's no such thing as magic."

Her sister gave her a quick glance, looking oddly perturbed, and Petunia remembered too late that Lily's favorite books tended to be fantasy and nearly always involved some sort of sorcerer or wizard. Petunia herself preferred romance novels, if she read fiction at all (or indeed read _anything_ at all, not being too keen on the subject of books). "How do you know?" snapped Lily. "Maybe it is, even if this school isn't real."

"Oh, I assure you, it's quite real," said a voice. Lily, Petunia, and Mrs. Evans all jerked upright and looked around wildly before they realized the voice was coming, of all things, from the _envelope_, which had shaped itself into a sort of mouth and was floating in midair. "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is one of the finest magical academies in Europe, along with Beauxbatons in France and Durmstrang in Siberia."

The envelope turned and faced Lily, who couldn't have opened her mouth any wider if she'd tried. "You, my dear, are what the wizarding world calls a Muggle-born—that is, a witch born to a non-magic family."

"You mean I'm a witch?" said Lily faintly. "Is my skin going to turn green?"

The envelope laughed. "Oh no, not unless you enchant it to do so. You'll learn to do that, as well as many other somewhat more useful things, and we'll make you into a fine witch at Hogwarts, miss."

Petunia swung her hand over the top of the envelope, looking for strings, wires, anything that could possibly be explaining why a folded up piece of parchment was floating in her room, talking to them in a very calm and logical manner. "Oh, you won't find anything up there, my dear," said the envelope, looking up (if looking was the right word, since it had no eyes). "I'm a first-class Messenger, designed to activate only in the presence of the witch or wizard who receives me through the Muggle post. Specially made for Muggle-borns who don't use owl post yet."

"Owl post?" asked Lily eagerly.

"Normally, magic folk use owls to send mail," said the Messenger. "All kinds, from Great Grays to the tiny little Scops. They deliver much faster than the Muggle post, really, without all the hassle of stamps and postmarks!"

"Wow," breathed Lily, her eyes lighting up with wonder.

"I must say, you are an extraordinarily convincing puppet," said Mrs. Evans faintly, but she was smiling too. Only Petunia remained skeptical, glowering at the Messenger so fiercely she was somewhat surprised that it didn't burst into flames at once.

Of course, she thought bitterly, _she _wasn't a witch, so what would the dratted thing have to fear from _her_?

"I'll bet that strange things have happened to you all your life," said the Messenger to Lily, "things that you couldn't explain if you tried."

And this was true, too, Petunia mused, thinking about all the times she had found her sister up in trees or on rooftops, with Lily protesting that she'd been playing at being a bird or a plane or a dragon and suddenly she really had been flying, just for a moment. Or the fact that things seemed to explode rather more around her sister than they really should—proof positive was her now defunct pillow, the feathers from which still clung in both girls' hair. She caught herself in this line of thinking and was immediately furious, because Lily simply couldn't be a witch—such things weren't real.

But one glance at Lily's face told her that her sister was remembering all those strange occurrences, too, and Petunia's heart sank. "It has to be real, Mum, it just has to," Lily said, green eyes bright with excitement. "Can I go, please please please? It's just a like a fairy-tale."

"Well, naturally we'll want to speak with someone from the school and find out about it, I suppose," said Mrs. Evans, still looking faintly bemused. "Someone real, if you don't mind," she added to the envelope, which somehow managed to look insulted. "I mean no offense, dear, but you must admit, the word of a piece of parchment is nothing to base a choice like this on."

"Of course," said the Messenger. "You can use the Muggle telephone to contact a liaison from the Ministry of Magic to show you some of the wizarding world and tell you about Hogwarts." It rolled into a little ball, and then puffed outward again, this time with a phone number displayed where the address had been a moment before. Mrs. Evans scribbled it down and went downstairs with Lily bouncing after her.

Petunia watched the Messenger float down to the ground, slowly coming to rest on top of a pile of feathers. It fluttered once and said softly, "Don't be so jealous, my dear Muggle," and then went dead once more. Petunia glared at it and stomped her stocking foot down onto the yellow parchment, clenching her fists as she ground it into the carpet.

She heard Mrs. Evans' voice from downstairs saying something about Friday and London, and sat down on her bed. The red brick building on her yearbook caught her eye, and Petunia picked it up sadly. She found her own picture among the second years, between Harriet Engleside and Jill Ezerby and wondered if Lily realized what she'd just done.

"At noon, then, meet for lunch at the Leaky Cauldron Pub in London," floated her mother's voice up the stairs. "Could you give me directions, please?"

Petunia sighed and slammed the pages closed. "So much for double trouble," she whispered, and if the Messenger, still faintly fluttering on the floor, had anything to say about that, it wisely kept quiet.

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At precisely noon on Friday, the whole Evans family found themselves standing outside a grubby little bookstore in London, wondering where exactly the Leaky Cauldron pub was supposed to be. Lily kept staring at something next to the bookstore, as if she expected it to appear out of thin air, while Mr. and Mrs. Evans debated whether they had gotten the address correct. Petunia remained stubbornly silent, staring at the same spot as her sister and wondering why she kept thinking there was something there when she saw it from the corner of her eye but when she looked straight on there was only a blank brick wall.

"Are you the Evans family?" said a cheerful voice from behind them. Petunia turned around and saw a plump young man with curly black hair and brown skin waving jovially at them. "I'm Bernie Puckle, your Ministry of Magic liaison. Shall we go inside? I've gotten Tom to hold us a table."

He pointed at the empty brick wall next to the bookshop, and they all gasped as a grungy sign bearing the legend 'The Leaky Cauldron' and a door beneath it materialized from thin air. Petunia stared unabashedly at their guide, wondering exactly how he'd done that. "It's enchanted, you see, so that unless you know to look for it you won't see it," he told them as they followed him inside.

The Evans parents exclaimed over the sudden appearance of the pub's entrance while Lily and Petunia gazed around at the curious people inside. They sat down in a quiet corner and the bartender brought them a pile of dusty menus. Most, if not all, the people in the Leaky Cauldron were dressed in funny clothing: instead of trousers and skirts, they wore long, flowing robes in a variety of bright colors; instead of bowlers, their hats were tall and pointed; and many of them had high boots that laced up to their knees rather than proper shoes. Petunia wondered if she'd suddenly fallen back in time a few centuries.

Bernie, speaking in high, excited tones, was showing her parents and Lily a series of brochures about Hogwarts, but Petunia did not bother to listen. She hardly touched her pork chop and mashed potatoes, and did not join in with her family as they eagerly questioned the Muggle liaison about all aspects of life at Hogwarts.

He showed them around Diagon Alley after lunch, and though Lily pressed her face against every shop window with mounting enthusiasm, Petunia could not muster up anything more than a small smile when her sister shouted, "Look at this, Pet!" at every turn. Flourish and Blotts, Magical Menagerie, Ollivander's, Eeylop's Owl Emporium, Quality Quidditch Supplies, Gringotts—nothing stirred Petunia's interest, while Lily couldn't get enough of it all.

At the end of the tour, it was firmly decided that Lily would be attending Hogwarts rather than St. Mary's, and Bernie helped them send off an owl with the news from the post office. He promised to meet them in another week to shop for Lily's school supplies, and they went off home, everyone but Petunia unable to stop talking about all the marvels they had seen that day. She sank into the corner of the backseat and tried not to think about it, wishing desperately that Lily would get this ridiculous notion out of her head and come to St. Mary's with her.

_Not_ Hogwarts, where neither of them should be. St. Mary's. Where, Petunia thought bitterly, they both truly belonged.

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Thank you for the kind reviews! Comments and concerns very welcome!


	3. The Rift Widens

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters belong to J.K. Rowling. I am merely borrowing them.

Author's Note: An interesting tidbit: I found this while I was messing around online, from an interview Rowling gave on August 15, 2004 at the Edinburgh Book Festival.

"_Is Aunt Petunia a Squib?_

_Good question. No, she is not, but—[Laughter]. No, she is not a Squib. She is a Muggle, but—[Laughter]. You will have to read the other books. You might have got the impression that there is a little bit more to Aunt Petunia than meets the eye, and you will find out what it is. She is not a squib, although that is a very good guess. Oh, I am giving a lot away here. I am being shockingly indiscreet."_

Apparently I am psychic. Sort of. Haha. Enjoy the chapter!

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MUGGLE

Chapter Two: The Rift Widens

Everyone is kneaded out of the same dough but not baked in the same oven. -Yiddish Proverb:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

_Dear Petunia,_

_How's good old St. Mary's? I hope you're learning lots and lots of new things... and I hope you're paying mind to your studies as well! I'm having a wonderful time. I've been sorted into Gryffindor—we're all put in a different house the first night, and would you believe it, the Sorting's done by a hat! All the other girls in my year are quite nice and we get along well. I should say all the other girls in my year in Gryffindor, because some of the Slytherins are a bit nasty. _

_My classes are loads of fun, even though some of them are very hard. I like Charms the best so far. Professor Flitwick is so funny and very good at what he does. I know it's schoolwork, but still, it's much interesting than the ordinary kind. One of my classes is taught by a ghost. I guess one day he died and didn't realize it, and then just got up and started teaching like nothing had happened. _

_Write me back about St. Mary's and all the fun you're having there! _

_Love, Lily_

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Petunia wadded the letter into a ball and chucked across the room as hard as she could.

"Bit angry, are we?" said one of her roommates, Lucy Edmonds, looking up from her magazine.

"Lily," said Petunia, gritting her teeth. "First she doesn't want to go to St. Mary's, and then she has the gall to tell me that her school is loads better than an ordinary one!"

Lucy raised an eyebrow. "Where exactly does she go, anyway?" she asked curiously, twisting a bit of curly brown hair around a finger.

"It's called Hogwarts," said Petunia, feeling a faint tinge of guilt because really, she wasn't supposed to talk about Lily's school to people who didn't know anything about the wizarding world. "It's got an, er, _experimental_ curriculum."

"I never heard of any school called that," Lucy said, frowning. "And we looked at a lot of them when I was trying to pick one."

"I guess it's new or something," Petunia lied, knowing full well (from listening to Lily tell her absolutely _everything _about her new school) that Hogwarts was nearly a thousand years old and possibly the oldest school of any kind in the country.

Lucy shrugged. "How weird," she said. "And she wanted that over St. Mary's?"

"Yeah," Petunia muttered. "How weird indeed."

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_Dear Petunia,_

_Two Gryffindor boys named James and Sirius played a big prank on the girls today by taking all our underwear and hanging it out on a line from the Gryffindor tower to the Astronomy tower. No one can prove they did it, especially since boys are not supposed to be allowed in the girls' dormitories and the stairs are supposed to turn into a slide if any boy tries to go up it. But everyone knows those two did it. They're the worst troublemakers in our year, and it's a good thing they're good students because otherwise I think they'd be expelled straight off. _

_Love, Lily_

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"Hmph," said Petunia, and added another ball of parchment to the pile in her wastebasket.

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_Dear Petunia, _

_It's almost the Christmas holiday! I can't wait to come home and see all of you and tell you more about all the things I've been learning. Yesterday we started doing Locomotion Charms and they're quite fun. We've been having races with matchbox cars to practice, but I can't quite figure out why all the non-Muggle folk are so fascinated with them. It's not as if a car is a particularly strange thing, really. _

_I've been learning how to fly, too, which I forgot to tell you about and I can't think why because it's so much fun. I'm not very good yet, and it's a bit frightening getting up in the air with just a broomstick under you. Some of the boys are very daring fliers, but of course they aren't supposed to be doing things like that yet. I like watching the Quidditch players and hopefully I can fly like that someday! They go so fast and my friend Hallie says that real Quidditch is even faster. I'm rooting for Gryffindor to win, of course. _

_Why didn't you answer my last letter? Oh, I suppose you're busy with all your studies, but please write when you have the chance. I miss you! _

_Love, Lily_

"I suppose you're busy with all your studies, Petunia!"

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Petunia, who in fact was handling her classes rather well, ripped the letter in two and then shredded the pieces. "Gosh, you're really mad about your sister not going here," said Lucy from her bed.

"I'm just mad at how superior she acts," growled Petunia. "She thinks she's all better than us, just because her school is _experimental._"

"More like just plain mental, I should say," said Lucy.

"I would have to agree," Petunia said, and dropped the confetti of paper into the wastebasket.

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Petunia's train got in first at the station, so she waited with her parents outside the barrier to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.

"So how was school this term, dear?" said Mrs. Evans absently, checking her watch against the clock on the wall.

"Everything went well," said Petunia. "I got high marks on everything, and you wouldn't believe some of the things that happened! Why, Julia Prissoms got herself locked into the lavatory and no one is quite sure why, but she was only wearing her underwear—"

"That's nice, dear," said her mother. "Oh, there's Lily's train now!"

Her parents went through the barrier with a cautious look around; Petunia watched them disappear and did not follow, wondering sourly if she disappeared herself would they even notice? What a thing to have a witch in the family, wasn't it—so much better than a normal girl who, apparently, did not have anything to say worth listening to.

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To Petunia's great relief Lily was not allowed to do magic at home, so she couldn't show off any of the strange things she had learned. But she could talk about them—and talk she did. Usually the louder of the two sisters, Petunia found herself pushed from the spotlight and into the background. Bitterly she reasoned that her parents already knew a lot about their boring Muggle world, so of course they would rather hear about the wizarding world—something that they had never dreamed was real.

Though she told herself she was comforted by this reasoning, deep down inside jealousy churned and boiled, festering into anger until she had to bite back acid comments every time Lily walked into a room. Her parents didn't notice (or at least didn't say anything about it if they did) but Lily soon got the hint. For a while she left Petunia alone, and then finally on the last night of Christmas holiday pushed open the door to her older sister's room.

"Go away," snapped Petunia when she saw who it was.

"What did I do?" Lily said, not budging.

"What?" queried Petunia innocently.

"You've been ignoring me the whole time we've been home," said Lily, crimson creeping up her cheeks. "And you glare at me whenever I come in. If you're going to be mad at me then at least tell me why you're mad at me."

Petunia swallowed a host of angry remarks and then turned to her sister. "Why do you think?"

"I think you're jealous!" said Lily. "You can't stand it that I didn't go to a normal place like you and you wish you could come to Hogwarts too, so you're mad at me."

"Jealous? Of you?" cried Petunia. "You think I'm _jealous_?"

"I can't help it I'm a witch," Lily said. "But just because you're not doesn't mean that you have to get all envious. You've got your own talents."

"I'm not jealous of a freak like you," snapped Petunia. "You're never going to fit into the real world and you'll realize that as soon as you get out of that place!"

"I'll be way happier as a witch than you ever will," said Lily, clenching her fists. "I'm sorry I tried to fix things," she added as she shut the door. "You always try too hard to fit in, Petunia, but you're just a gossipy freak too and you never will! I'm surprised you have any friends at all, the way you run your mouth off about everyone!"

Petunia heard her footsteps stomping away down the hall and flopped backwards onto her bed, trembling with rage. Maybe, she admitted to herself, she was a little jealous. Not of Lily's going to Hogwarts, but of the attention that she always got. No matter what Petunia did, no matter how hard she tried, Lily always seemed to easily win. It was just one more time... one time too many.

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Lily did not write any more letters, and Petunia did not mind. They reached an uneasy truce that summer, but never regained the old camaraderie. Their parents noticed, and worried—but both girls were growing up and since they were quite different people, Mr. and Mrs. Evans sadly decided that their girls were simply growing apart.

And so it went, each sister cordial to the other, speaking in pleasantries and not much more, drifting apart more and more with every year, not quite getting along but not fighting any longer.

At least, not until Lily's third year at Hogwarts and Petunia's sixth year at St. Mary's...

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Sorry for the wait, but I moved back to college and had to get my dad to email me the start I had made on this chapter when I discovered I had forgotten to transfer it on my computer.


	4. Squabbles and Surprises

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters belong to J.K. Rowling. I am merely borrowing them.

Author's Note: I appreciate reviews, and I especially appreciate criticism, but if you aren't going to be nice about it, please don't say anything. Even if I have a lot of problems with a story, I try to be encouraging and polite, and I would encourage everyone to extend the same courtesy, not only to me but to all the people they review.

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MUGGLE

Chapter Three: Squabbles and Surprises

_Time is the fire in which we burn._

_-Gene Roddenberry_

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"Stupid—dratted—thing—why—won't—you—WORK!!!!"

Petunia flipped a page in her magazine and sighed.

BANG. BANG. BANG sounded from the other room, suspiciously reminding her of someone hitting their head repeatedly against the wall.

Petunia flipped another page.

"ARGH!!! WHY DID I TAKE THIS STUPID SUBJECT ANYWAY!"

And another page turned—even though she hadn't actually taken in anything written on it.

Another bang, and Petunia heaved a great sigh. Carefully putting her magazine down, she rolled off the bed and padded over to the next room. She waited until the repeated bangs quit once more, and then softly knocked.

"What!" growled Lily, throwing the door wide open.

"Just checking to see if you're trying to break the house down," said Petunia, raising an eyebrow. "I thought you weren't supposed to do magic outside of school."

"I'm not," said Lily and made to shut the door, but Petunia stuck an arm in it before she could close it.

"What are you doing that's making such a racket, then?" she asked quickly, forcing her way into the room.

"I'm beating my brains out on the wall," Lily grumbled. "Go away."

Petunia rolled her eyes and looked around at her sister's room, which bore little resemblance to any other part of the house. Posters waved at her, their brightly colored robes and long, wooden wands flashing and blinking. A broomstick stood in the corner, with the words Cleansweep Two emblazoned on the handle; a pile of thick, heavy books weighed down several unrolled parchments, all covered with Lily's curly, looping handwriting.

In the center of the room, balanced haphazardly on the seat of a chair, was a shimmering round ball, totally smooth and clear. Petunia peered at it, pushing Lily off as her sister tried to physically force her out of the room.

"Go AWAY, Petunia, I don't come in YOUR room," screeched Lily, tugging at her older sister's arm.

"I just want to look," said Petunia, unable to take her eyes from the crystal, and wrested her arm from Lily's grasp. She reached out to touch the surface of the crystal ball. An odd fog seemed to have wrapped itself around her brain, dulling all the rest of the world into mere background noise.

Her own face shone back at her in the shining surface, the long neck and nose and big front teeth mocking her as they always did, magnified even more by the curving crystal. She dropped to her knees and took the ball into her hands, gasping as it seemed to float away from the chair when she had been expecting something much heavier.

She looked at her face, something nagging at the corner of her brain, but she could not figure out what it was—there was another face, green eyes—a flash of green light—the crystal ball was ripped from her grasp—and she was lying on her back on the floor, Lily peering down at her from a very white face. "What did you do?" whispered her little sister, looking very frightened.

Her mouth was dry, and she couldn't speak for a long moment. The crystal ball was tucked under Lily's arms, and Petunia supposed it must have been her who had snatched it away. She wanted to look again. The compulsion was almost unbearable, but her limbs felt as if they weighed a hundred kilos each, and so she stayed on Lily's floor.

"I don't feel so well," she whispered.

"You don't look so well," said Lily, still white-faced. "I don't think you'd better touch any of my magic things. I didn't know they were dangerous to Muggles like that."

"I think it was because you pulled it away," said Petunia. Her head had stopped spinning and she found she could sit up, though she still felt desperately as if she wanted to sleep for a week.

"Why would that make a difference?" Lily said, green eyes wide.

"Aren't people supposed to see things in crystal balls?" Petunia said. "The future, and things like that?"

Lily's eyes narrowed, and she tightened her grip slightly on the crystal ball. "Yes," she said slowly. "Not everyone can, though. Just Seers, really. And those are really rare."

A deep chill went down Petunia's shoulders and settled in the pit of her stomach as her mind raced through the images it had seen in the ball once more. "I saw something, Lily. I saw myself—"

"That was your reflection," said Lily.

"No!" Petunia cried. "I was old! I had wrinkles and, and I looked like myself but not like myself! And I saw someone else, someone that had your eyes..."

She fell silent and sucked in a deep breath. Something had left her with a tremor of dread running through her veins, and nothing in the short, cut-off vision could explain what it was. The silence in the room was deafening for a long moment.

Then Lily snorted.

"Sure, Petunia, that's right. Make fun of me because I can't see anything in this crystal ball. I'm going to drop Divination anyway, I don't care." Her cheeks blazing red, Lily wrapped the crystal ball in a blanket and threw it vehemently into her trunk before Petunia's mind quite registered what was happening. With a scowl she pulled Petunia from her bemused seat on the carpet and shoved her into the hall; the door slammed shut, leaving a very confused Petunia standing in the hallway.

The icy trickle of fear still coursed through her limbs; something terrible was going to happen to her little sister, she was sure of it. She had never been so sure of anything in her entire life. The green light flashed before her eyes again.

"Lily!" she shouted. "I'm not lying, Lil!"

Nothing but silence came from Lily's room. Petunia gritted her teeth, her dread beginning to be replaced by a trickle of anger and doubt, and went down the stairs to the kitchen. She poured herself a glass of water and sank onto the floor, leaning against the white-painted cupboards.

So very sure she had been only a few moments ago, and now she could not really say what it was she had seen, or why it should have scared her—why it still did scare her—so much. The glass of water trembled in her hand, and she set it down on the floor and buried her head in her arms. Lily shouldn't have snatched the crystal ball out of her hands so quickly. Maybe then she could have seen more... maybe she would have seen something that could explain the sick dread in the pit of her stomach.

She didn't move until the front door banged open and her parents came in, talking loudly to each other, and then she slipped upstairs to her room and did not come out for the rest of the night.

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Two days remained before each sister would pack up and return to school on their separate trains. Petunia was determined to look into the crystal ball once more. The green eyes that were Lily's and yet not haunted her dreams; she was quite sure that something important revolved around their owner, but she could not say what that might be.

Lily guarded her room like a greedy dragon standing sentry over a hoard of treasure, and when she was not in it the door was always locked. Petunia took to haunting the hallway, waiting for Lily to emerge and hopefully leave the door open. All she needed was a few minutes to find the ball and duck back out again.

She had been hanging around the stairway and the upstairs hall for nearly an hour when Lily came out and rolled her eyes. "What is the matter with you, Petunia? Honestly," she said, and went down the stairs without looking back.

Petunia darted across the hall and got a finger into the frame before the door swung shut. Carefully she closed it behind her and tiptoed into the room, looking for a round bundle or a box or something that could be the coveted crystal ball.

To her great surprise it was not hard to find—there it sat, in plain view atop Lily's desk with a shirt cradling the bottom so it could not roll away. For a moment Petunia simply stared and then, quickly, before she could lose her nerve, she snatched it from the desk, shirt and all. With it wrapped snugly in her arms she fled back to her own room just as Lily's footsteps echoed at the bottom of the stairs.

Lily would almost certainly notice its absence, especially because it had been sitting out in the open, so Petunia grabbed a sweater and then opened her window. The old chestnut tree had provided an easy route out many times before, and she could slither down it without needing to use both hands.

It was wet outside, and chilly, but she took no notice. The crystal, wrapped tightly in Lily's shirt and tucked beneath her arm, seemed warm to the touch. Petunia wandered down the road for a few minutes, trying to look unsuspicious, thinking of a place to go where people would not disturb her.

As she walked past the library a thought struck her; though she herself rarely took books out, Lily was in there all the time. And every time her sister had dragged her in, back when they'd still done everything together, the place had been nearly deserted. Petunia went up the steps and slipped through the door, her wet shoes squeaking on the tile. An elderly librarian looked up from his desk and shushed at her.

Walking a little more carefully, she went past him and down the steps into the basement, where Lily's favorite fantasy and science fiction section lurked. There was no one at all there, but Petunia went back to farthest corner and settled down, leaning against the Z's.

She couldn't see the door from where she sat, and she highly doubted anyone would be able to see her, if indeed anyone came down. Hoping desperately that no one would, she pulled the cloth away from the smooth crystal and stared into it, at once nervous and excited.

But nothing happened.

Petunia squinted one way, then the other, tilted her head from side to side, and brought her face closer and farther away.

The crystal remained obstinately blank.

Petunia slumped down with a sigh, deeply disappointed. Maybe it had just been a fluke, some strange Muggle-ness interacting wrongly with wizard magic. She looked at her reflection in the ball, hating the long thin face and the way her nose looked ten times larger, and tried not to cry. How long had she waited outside Lily's door for her chance, and now it was all for nothing?

She did not notice the surface of the ball beginning to swirl below her fingers... Her reflection shimmered and changed as a tear dripped down her nose and splattered on the smooth surface.

Cold gray light bathed Petunia's face, and she blinked, startled... there! Her own face, aged who knew how many years into the future, stared back at her from the crystal, and her mind tumbled into the vision without any control whatsoever.

Images rushed past her eyes—there, the green eyes that were not quite Lily's—the curious green light—terror! A cruel, mocking laugh met her ears, and there...

Her sister, older too, knelt on the floor amidst a sea of broken plaster and furniture, bleeding from a cut on her forehead and clutching something in her arms.

A green light—a blinding flash—and Lily lay still on the floor, her eyes wide and blank, staring dully into oblivion. Green eyes again—the baby! The bundle was a child, a child that now lay wailing at his mother's side.

Petunia had one long moment, stretching out into timelessness, to gaze at her nephew—black hair, as black as night, and pale skin, and those green eyes that mirrored the dead ones of his mother.

And one dark figure came out of nowhere and scooped the child into his arms, and Petunia's senses all exploded with fear. Never had she seen someone who so instantly made her want to run and run and never stop, who smelt of cold death and despair.

He spoke tenderly to the baby, his gentle smile revolting on his evil

face.

"And here you are, Harry," he said. "So tiny. So innocent."

With one long-fingered hand he brushed away the tears from the child's face, gently clucking at the little boy until he quieted.

"You'll see your mother soon," he whispered. His eyes blazed and two more words shot from his mouth, and the green light flared once more, and Harry's eyes—Lily's eyes—widened until they seemed to swallow her up and spit her out, back once more into the depths of the library and the concerned face of the elderly librarian asking her if she was quite all right.

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	5. Augur

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters belong to J.K. Rowling. I am merely borrowing them.

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MUGGLE

Chapter Four: Augur

_Prediction is very difficult, especially of the future._

_Niels Bohr_

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Petunia woke up with a funny taste in her mouth like dry cotton, and gagged softly. A cool hand brushed across her forehead, and she heard the soft sound of her mother's voice. The words took their time about falling into place—she finally understood after three repetitions, and gratefully accepted a drink of water.

Her room—for it did seem to be her own room—was dark, and so it was a surprise when another voice spoke to her mother. "Yes, case of pneumonia, I should say," said the crotchety old whisper of Dr. Hattersfield, their ancient family physician who had delivered not only both Petunia and Lily but their mother as well. "It can come on quite suddenly, especially if people insist on taking their daily constitutionals out in the pouring rain!"

Petunia closed her eyes, confused. Pouring rain?

"She's really usually a very sensible girl," said her mother gently, stroking her daughter's hair. "I can't think what got into her."

Neither could Petunia. Why had she been out in the pouring rain? She remembered the library—why had she been at the library?—and the old librarian—and running, running, running out into the rain, coming down much harder than when she had snuck out of the house with the crystal ball clutched to her chest...

With a panicked cry that turned into a racking cough she sat up in bed. "Lily, where's Lily?" she gasped out, trying to slide out of bed past her mother. Her arms wouldn't work, though; they were shaky and weak. This was not pneumonia, Petunia thought, this was what happened when Muggles messed around with wizard magic.

She remembered all she had seen, and the thought sent a shudder up her spine.

"Darling, I will go get Lily," said her mother, sounding slightly alarmed. "You lie back down and rest."

Dr. Hattersfield came and took her temperature as her mother walked out. Petunia did not complain at the metallic taste of the thermometer. "Do you remember what happened, young lady?" he asked, clucking at her temperature.

"I was walking in the rain," Petunia said, struggling to remember what had happened after she fled the library. "I don't remember how I got home. I think I was lost."

"You found your own way home," said the ancient doctor, raising one eyebrow. "You are there now."

"I know that," said Petunia snappishly. She vaguely wondered what had become of the crystal ball.

The door opened again and Lily sidled in. Her face, lit by the light from the hallway, looked none too pleased. "I need to talk to her alone," said Petunia to the doctor. "Please," she added as an afterthought.

Now two people in the room looked annoyed, but Petunia didn't care. "Please," she said again, and he nodded, shutting the door behind him.

Lily turned on the light and sat in Petunia's desk chair. "Where is it?" she said in a low voice.

"I can't remember," Petunia said.

Her little sister rolled her eyes. "Of course not."

"I'm not trying to make your life miserable, Lil," Petunia said, the words coming out rather more curtly than she had intended. Her head ached; she did not want to have this conversation, but Lily must be warned about what she had seen. "Really I'm not. I can See things in the crystal ball. I saw you and you were dead. And your son was about to be killed."

Lily sighed. "Petunia, you're very ill right now. I think you were ill yesterday when you took it and thought your joke was real. Dr. Hattersfield told us that you might be delirious and that's why you ran away. Fine, you don't remember where you left the crystal ball. I realize you're quite sick. But please, don't think you are sick enough to actually See something in that piece of rubbish. Most magic folk can't even See anything. It's almost impossible. And you're not even a witch!"

Petunia struggled up from her pillows, feeling as if the entire weight of the world had landed on her chest. "Please, Lily, you have to believe me," she whispered. "Please. For Harry's sake. For your sake." She felt a tear drip down her cheek.

"Who's Harry?" whispered Lily, paling slightly.

"Your son," said Petunia softly. Lily shook her head and stood up, pacing around the room. Petunia's head was spinning; she turned on her side and closed her eyes, hoping to make the dizziness go away. A warm drowsiness overtook her mind, and she felt herself slipping off, back to the oblivion of sleep. There was more she needed to tell Lily, much more—but she could not make the words come from her lips.

She felt a weight on her shoulder—Lily, gently hugging her, and then it was gone.

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Lily left the day after, bound safely on the train back to school, and did not speak again to Petunia. Petunia herself did not seek out her sister; for one, she was firmly watched by her mother, who would not let her out of bed, and for two, she was hurt by Lily's disbelief.

She would not be allowed back in school for another month because of illness, and rapidly found herself bored stiff with nothing to gossip about. Her friends called, of course, and sent letters, but it wasn't the same. Petunia desperately wanted to be somewhere, anywhere, that didn't have traces of Lily all over the place to remind her of all that she had seen. At night she woke gasping and shaking with the terrifying images from the crystal ball once more fresh in her mind.

Where had she put that crystal ball, she wondered. She did not remember anything after running from the library and out into the rain. She did not doubt that she would have tried to put it somewhere safe, even in such an agitated state of mind, but where could that safe place be?

After she was allowed out of bed she looked all around the house, but she doubted very much that the crystal ball was anywhere inside it. No doubt Lily would have reclaimed it at once if she had walked in with it still in her arms. When her parents went to work she slipped out and looked around the outside of the house, but since her mother had developed the irritating habit of calling on the phone at random times to check up on her daughter, she could not go very far.

At the end of her month away from school she was obliged to admit defeat, and left without finding the crystal ball. Petunia rather wondered if Lily had gotten in trouble for taking it, but since her sister didn't write any longer, she didn't think of it.

At school she was no longer bored to tears, having four weeks of gossip (and schoolwork) to catch up with, but the nightmares did not stop. Her roommates never said anything but Petunia more than once caught them giving her strange looks the next morning—and she had to admit, if one of them had been doing the same thing, she would have given out a strange look or two herself.

The nightmares were nothing compared to the strangeness of one particular spring day, though.

Petunia lay sprawled on a bench in the gardens, chattering to her friends with nothing more serious in mind, for once, then the curious case of Angela Huffminster's newest boyfriend, Dirk Montmorency from Snellings Boys' Academy across town, whom no one had met and about whom a large amount of rather startling rumors had sprung up. Busy dissecting the fallacy in the latest one, about how Dirk had supposedly spent six years living on an agricultural commune with Congolese Pygmies in the middle of Africa, Petunia failed to notice when the rest of the world went absolutely silent and still around her.

"...there, Mags, you see why it's simply impossible?" she finished up.

No reply—and Petunia had been expecting to get a rather emphatic rebuttal.

Petunia sat up. "Mags?"

Maggie sat with her hands in the air, mouth open, clearly about to deliver a scathing reply, but nothing came. Gently Petunia touched her outstretched hand, and found it stiff and heavy, like a stuffed hunting trophy, and felt a quiver of fear rising within her.

Lucy and Maude both sat leaning against the bench, in the same strange manner. Petunia stared at them, her hands trembling. "What's happening?" she whispered.

"I assure you, it's quite all right," said a quiet voice behind her. Petunia whirled around with a start, nearly tipping over the bench. A pair of winking black eyes stared down at her from a wrinkled old face surrounded by short, curly salt-and-pepper hair beneath a tall, pointed blue velvet hat. The stranger, looking very much like ancient pictures of Merlin from storybooks, was dressed in sweeping blue robes dotted with tiny stars. Beneath it he wore a silver waistcoat and a ruffled cravat that poked up oddly from beneath his short, snow-white beard. "I merely need to speak with you in private, Miss Evans. This is the easiest way."

Petunia goggled at him, very much aware of Maggie's frozen form next to her. "Did you hurt them?" she whispered, a tremor of fear in her voice.

The stranger smiled. "They will not remember anything except your conversation on the bench, my dear. You suddenly remembered a very important appointment and had to rush off." He held out his hand, still smiling gently.

Petunia did not move. "You're a wizard," she said flatly. "Who are you, exactly?"

"Ah, of course. Introductions must be made," said the man. Giving her a sweeping bow, he grinned and said, "I, dear girl, am Barnabas Augur, professor of Divination at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

A weight suddenly dropped into the pit of Petunia's stomach—they had found out about the crystal ball. Lily must have gotten in trouble for losing it... Professor Augur suddenly laughed, and said, as if he had heard her thoughts, "Yes, my dear, it is about the crystal ball, but you are in no trouble. If you would walk with me for a bit I will explain."

Feeling that she could do nothing less, if only for Lily's sake (even though Petunia vaguely wondered why she bothered), she nodded and walked next to the professor. Behind her, she heard the girls start chattering again, not even noticing her as they headed down the path.

"Now," said Professor Augur, "I heard a very strange tale from Lily after the Christmas holiday about the fate of a crystal ball lent out to her for practice. It seems her older sister stole it, and then pretended to have visions in order to taunt her about being unable to See anything."

Petunia felt her cheeks redden. Though she would not have admitted it to the professor, Lily's words hurt quite a bit. "I think," continued the professor, "that there is a different explanation." He stopped, and put a hand on Petunia's shoulder. "Have you ever heard the legend of Cassandra, Miss Evans?"

"I think so," said Petunia. "Wasn't she some sort of Greek myth?"

"Indeed," said Professor Augur with a smile. "I suppose the Muggle world would call her mythical, although she is quite real. She made prophecies but no one believed her—do you know why, Miss Evans?"

"They thought she was mad, I think," said Petunia.

"That, of course, but there were wizards around back then, too. There was the blind prophet Tiresias, who warned Oedipus of the dangers of asking too many questions about his parents, and the soothsayer Calchas, who was himself at the great siege of Troy with the Greeks, among many others. Yet the wizards of that time did not believe Cassandra, either. Do you know why?"

"Because they thought Muggles couldn't do anything like see the future," said Petunia, unable to hide the bitterness in her voice.

The professor nodded slowly, the smile still on his face. "Precisely, Miss Evans. I see cleverness runs in the family, my dear girl," he said.

Petunia thought this professor was rather condescending, but she merely nodded.

"You are a rare breed of Muggle, Petunia, that has some little bit of power—not enough to do magic as a proper witch or wizard would, but enough to open your mind to channels that other Muggles would not see, and indeed, that even other magic folk cannot see. It is perhaps because your talent is focused, or perhaps because you are so inquisitive of yourself, that you can use the crystal ball as you do," said Augur.

"Then what I saw is going to come true?" asked Petunia.

Augur cocked one eyebrow at her. "It may," he said, the smile gone from his face quick as lightning. "It may indeed. But it is still the future—it is still changeable. To change it, though, that is a tricky business. For who is to say whether it is not your actions in trying to change the future that cause it to happen?"

Petunia's shoulders slumped. She had half been expecting this strange professor to tell her that this was all some kind of elaborate joke, thought up by Lily to torture her. Her heart thumped in her chest, so loudly that she thought the professor would hear it, and her fingers trembled. If it was a joke, than maybe it would mean that nothing would happen. Nothing would come of her visions—but if they were really real (deep down she had known they were, but she wanted not to believe it) then they would happen. They _could _happen, Petunia amended herself, not yet willing to cement her sister's fate.

"Now," said Professor Augur, "I would like to know exactly what you saw when you looked into the crystal ball."

To speak of the figure that still haunted her nightmares was quite difficult, but Petunia did her best. It was hard to remember what had actually occurred in the vision and what had been an invention of her mind, for she had dreamed of the scene many times since then.

The professor's face grew more and more troubled as she spoke. When she finished he was silent for a long moment, and then looked at her with a grave expression on his wrinkled face.

"I have seen this man too," said Augur softly. "Tell me, does Lily speak to you of any of the events of the wizarding world?" Petunia shook her head, and he went on. "There is a powerful wizard who has been stirring up trouble among the magical community. He hates Muggles, and even more he hates those wizards who sympathize with them, who marry them, live with them, work with them—he believes that wizarding folk should remain pure and separated, untainted by the dirty blood of the rest of the world." Augur's eyes blazed with fury. "Above the places he has done his dirty work, he leaves his Mark—a giant, glowing green skull with a snake protruding from its mouth."

For a moment the professor seemed consumed by anger, sending a shiver of fear down Petunia's spine.

"Yes, Petunia," he said, "I know whom you saw. His name—his name is Lord Voldemort."

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	6. The Seers

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters belong to J.K. Rowling. I am merely borrowing them.

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MUGGLE

Chapter Five: The Seers

_There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy._

_George Washington_

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"Lord Voldemort?" squeaked Petunia. Maybe it was the way he said it, or maybe it was the name itself—she didn't know. Either way, the words sent a shiver down her spine.

"Most wizards do not say his name," said the professor, his eyes flashing dangerously. "I believe that such a thing is foolish. Fear of a name only increases fear of a thing itself."

Petunia was disinclined to agree—if this Lord Voldemort was indeed killing Muggles, she'd rather not draw any attention to herself. But she only nodded, sensing a more pressing problem at hand. "And what does this all have to do with me?" she asked slowly.

Professor Augur drew in a sharp breath and glared off into the distance. "Divination, my dear, is a very imprecise art," he said, distantly. "Yet there are those who can focus it enough to gain control… to see what they wish to see in the future." Petunia shivered again, for she had noticed that the professor's hand was clenched into a fist so tightly that his knuckles had gone white.

In a matter of seconds he had gone from being the friendly, kind wizard of storybooks to a frightening sorcerer of nightmare. An icy-cold dribble of fear trickled through Petunia, though she could not have said quite why.

"I cannot control what I see," she said quietly, outwardly calm.

The professor shook his head. "I know, Miss Evans," he said. "I must ask if you would be willing to learn.

"You see," he went on, "those few who focus their talents have spent hours upon hours trying to gain an inkling of the plans laid by He Who Must Not Be Named. No one can see him, whether by some enchantment of his or some natural reason—no one, it seems, except you.

"You, Petunia Evans, are the only Seer to have glimpsed the Dark Lord. We must ask you to try and learn to focus your gift, my dear, and help us." The professor paused and gave her a deep, searching look that made Petunia feel very small. "I understand if you do not wish to do this. But remember what you have Seen already. Your sister may die—or we may be able to save her. And more, with your help."

A tear slid from the corner of Petunia's eye.

Barnabas Augur regarded her for a long moment, his black eyes flat in his wrinkled face. "There is a war coming," he said. "That much I have Seen already. It is a very difficult thing to realize, child, but you cannot rely on your safety in the Muggle world forever. When Lord Voldemort finishes with the wizarding folk, he will come after your world."

Anger, red-hot and fiery, swept through Petunia. "That's a terrible way to get someone to fight a war," she hissed.

"But it is true," replied the professor. "Can you ask more than that?"

"I wish all I had to worry about was gossip," snapped Petunia, more tears flowing down her cheeks in a hot flood. "And homework. And boys." _I wish Lily had never brought home that dratted crystal ball, _she added silently.

"May I take that as a yes?" asked Professor Augur, solemnly.

"If only for Lily's sake," Petunia shot back at him. _Damn her! _

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Saying she would fight in a war, and actually doing it, turned out to be two very different things. Petunia had to wait until the end of term to begin learning anything at all, and she had to make a number of rather complicated arrangements in order to be able to do anything.

Number One: Get a Job.

Or at least, pretend to get one in order to cover up large absences from home. Petunia half wished she were actually looking for some simple summer employment, because most of her friends from school did the same over the summer holiday. Her parents, however, were not too keen on the idea.

"I'm taking a job this summer," Petunia said simply.

Her mother, on the other end of the phone, gave a screech. Petunia held the phone away from her ear and grimaced. "Whatever for, darling? You have an allowance. Enjoy your time while you have it!" These were the opening lines of a ten-minute monologue, repeated in full by her just-as-supportive father.

This presented a considerable amount of difficulty, until Professor Augur suggested she tell her parents she was working in a museum in London through a program at school. Without being asked, he presented a load of pamphlets and sent them to her parents.

Thus, parents suitably convinced and somewhat agreeable, Petunia was free to proceed to Number Two—move into what her parents believed to be a student boarding house for the museum program.

It was actually a wizard-run headquarters that housed a number of somewhat suspicious folk, part of an elite secret force, Professor Augur told her, called the Order of the Phoenix.

On her first day Petunia skulked in corners, trying as hard as possible to be inconspicuous in the hustle and bustle that seemed to fill the old house. Wizards dressed in all manner of crazy get-up rushed to and fro, shouting about curious things like Aurors and Incantatems.

She explored for a little while, having woken up early that morning from nervousness. Past doors she went, hearing things like "Muggle-born" and "strategy" and "defensive spells" echo from inside. Though the house seemed crowded with people, none of them stopped to talk to her. It was, actually, quite easy to remain unnoticed. Finally, bored of exploring and being ignored, she went back to her room and waited until Augur came to fetch her. They went through a ridiculous number of twisting, turning corridors, dotted every so often with moving paintings that called out friendly hellos to Augur and gave Petunia curious looks. They went quite far, so that Petunia was completely mystified and sure that she would never be able to find her way back on her own.

"Is this building really this large?" she asked curiously. "It seemed smaller from outside."

"Wizard places usually do, Miss Evans," Professor Augur said. "Ah, here we are!"

He swung open a door onto a large, dim room filled with smoking braziers, teacups, and everywhere, shimmering crystal balls. "Is this her?" said a slinky, snotty voice from somewhere in the darkness. "Is this to be our little Spy?"

"Meet Madame Madeline Devin," said Professor Augur, "who thinks she is far more glamorous than she really is."

Madame Devin wore a silver robe that clung tight to her body, accented by glittering eye shadow and sparkles around her eyes. Petunia noted with jealousy that her black, shiny hair hung down below her waist; it was the sort she herself had always wished to have.

Another figure detached itself from the darkness and came forward—a man, not as old as Professor Augur but not young either, wearing overlarge spectacles and a patched brown robe. He bowed to Petunia solemnly but did not speak.

"This is Bernard Wahrsager," Professor Augur said. "He does not speak often, but when he does see that you listen to him."

And behind Bernard, one more shape slithered from the darkness—Petunia shivered. The figure, hooded cloaked in a sweeping dark cape, had glowing blue eyes that shone from the depths of the hood.

"And this," said Professor Augur, "is the Scryer."

"What is it?" whispered Petunia to the professor.

"Quiet, Miss Evans," said Augur sharply, below his breath.

But the Scryer had sharp hearing, whatever he—it—was. He glided over the floor towards them. "I, girl," the Scryer said in a voice like thunder twenty miles distant, "I am none of your concern." For a very long moment they locked eyes. An uneasy sense of déjà vu ran down Petunia's spine, though she knew she had never seen this strange being before. The blue eyes flashed at her.

"Have I Seen you before?" asked the Scryer softly. "No… I could not have. Muggles…"

And with that, leaving Petunia shaken, he disappeared again into the darkness.

"He helps us," said Madame Devin. "Heaven knows why, when none of us can really do anything, anyway."

"We see the peripherals," said Bernard softly. His voice sounded dusty, unused, like a library book left unread for years.

"Sometimes we can see things around the Dark Lord," said Augur. "None of us can see anything directly related to his activities, though. Maybe we can catch a glimpse of a Death Eater one day, or a spy the next, but never, never the Dark Lord himself."

"Can he see you?" asked Petunia curiously.

"If he tries," replied the professor. "There is no magic to block a proper Seer, none at all. But we have the advantage—the strongest Seers are on our side. You see, true Seers are very rare, Miss Evans, very rare indeed. Those you see in this room are the most skilled of our time. They can control their visions, seeing—sometimes—what they wish to see."

"That, child, is what you are here to learn," said Madame Devin. "We shall soon see if you have the proper aptitude for it… it will be apparently very quickly if you do not."

Petunia wished very much that she could run away now. Perhaps Lily was worth this—but perhaps not. After all, her sister hated her. She swallowed hard and said, "Right then. Where do we begin?"

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	7. True Visions

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters belong to J.K. Rowling. I am merely borrowing them.

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MUGGLE

Chapter Six: True Visions

_One faces the future with one's past._

_Pearl S. Buck_

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Day after day Petunia returned to the stuffy, dim room in the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix and subjected herself to hours of lectures and lessons from one or two of the four Seers. Most often it was Professor Augur, but on occasion she found herself left with Bernard and Madame Devin, who had no idea how to explain what they did, let alone teach.

On those days she left with a headache.

Far worse were the days with the Scryer. Though never did she have a lesson with only him, she always left wanting to weep. The man—Petunia was sure he was human, just _altered_, somehow—exuded an air of desperation and misery. She never saw his face, and alternated between terror at the thought of it and wild curiosity at what lay underneath that black hood.

On those days, she left with nightmares.

Half the summer was over and the Seers were ready to give up on her. She saw things in the crystal ball, but never controllable visions, and though as the weeks went by she acclimated to the images and no longer grew ill, she never again saw Lord Voldemort.

Sometimes they used a silver bowl filled with water to See, and Petunia would gasp at the half-formed nightmares that rose from the bowl before her. Augur would gently stir the water with a laurel branch, and words whispered from the ripples against the sides of the bowl.

Death… destruction… the Mark above!… we are lost… 

Once Petunia returned to her room and saw in the mirror a green grinning skull with a snake protruding from its mouth. When she screamed, bringing several members of the Order running, it disappeared. Madame Devin told her later about mirror scrying, and Petunia shivered in dismay. Would she forever be afraid to look into a mirror, for fear of what she might see?

On the first of August Petunia went to the Seers' room and sat, waiting patiently. She was always early; none of the members of the Order of the Phoenix ever spoke to her, so she had no one who might slow her up getting to lessons. All of the others were, and in any case, few of them stayed in the headquarters very long. Some she saw more than once, but usually, all she got of any of them was a glimpse and no more. Once she saw the headmaster of Lily's school (she only knew it was him because the wizard speaking to him called him "Headmaster" and asked about Hogwarts), and wondered what on earth a teacher would be doing fighting a war like this.

The Scryer emerged from the shadows, his blue eyes glowing like always. Petunia shuddered before she could stop herself, but he did not remark upon it.

"I am to give you instruction today," said the Scryer in his rumbling, distant voice.

"Just you?" said Petunia.

"I would prefer not just as much as you," he replied.

"Let's not and say we did," muttered Petunia.

He heard; she had intended him to, not forgetting his sharp hearing. "I cannot do that," he shot back. "Augur sees something in you. He thinks you can help. And for him, I will try. Not for your sake, child, for his."

"What do you owe him?" asked Petunia curiously.

The blue eyes flashed dangerously. "That is none of your concern. We meditate now."

She sat, obediently, on one of the cushions on the floor, and began the breathing exercises taught her by the Professor. The Scryer did the same, and for a long while they simply sat.

Usually Petunia dozed, as hard as she tried to empty her mind as she was supposed to. Today, she felt restless and alert, almost painfully aware of everything around her. Questions raced through her mind; with only the Scryer in front of her she could focus on nothing else. For some reason she thought of the lost crystal ball, and wondered again where it had gone.

A strange compulsion came over her, and before she realized what she was doing, she had risen and walked to the small table where another crystal ball sat shimmering in the dim light. Without thinking, her mind curiously blank, she stared into the depths of the smoky crystal and Saw.

Herself, running through the rain—face flushed, already in the grips of the fever that had sickened her for so long—and a dark figure behind her.

Voldemort! Petunia shouted in her mind, trying to warn herself, though she knew she Saw the past and not the future—but it was not he.

The lost crystal ball in her arms—the dark figure, with eyes flashing blue in the deep dark of the hood—he took it from her, and spoke a single word, and Petunia remembered it—"Obliviate!"

She came out of the trance, gasping for breath. "You took it!" she cried, whirling around to where the Scryer waited. "Why wouldn't you have told me? Why did you make me forget? Couldn't you have saved me the trouble?"

"Chance, mere chance," he said. "I did not remember, except I found it curious that a Muggle child should have what was clearly a wizarding artifact. So I took it to spare you further danger. Only days ago did I See it, and make the connection."

Petunia, angry, twisted back around. "Thank you, I suppose," she snapped. "Only I wish you had erased my memory of the vision as well, and then neither of us would be in this mess."

"Perhaps we would be in an even bigger one," said the Scryer dryly. "Haven't you learned yet that telling the future is a risky business, and one can never say for sure what might have happened? No one may know what might have been! All we may know—is what _is_."

"So how do you know anything you do will prevent Voldemort attacking? What if you See the future and you think something will change it, but it turns out to make the very thing you wanted to avoid happen anyway?"

"That is the risk we take," said the Scryer. "Collect yourself and try again."

A smoldering anger settled in Petunia's chest, and stayed despite her efforts to calm herself down. She thought that she didn't really want to be calmed down; all the resentment at the Order of the Phoenix and regret that she was not having a holiday like she should be seemed to have boiled up to the top. The Scryer's presence did not help. He frightened her, and irked her curiosity no end, and she could do nothing about either feeling.

In the crystal ball the mists took shape, and she drifted into the vision trance still wondering about the Scryer. _What is he?_ _Who is he really, under that crazy hood? What sane person goes about looking like the bloody Grim Reaper?_

She wanted to See the Scryer, wanted to know his secret, and suddenly, her anger swept her away into the mists, stopping abruptly in a stone room, filled with desks and funny bottles on shelves. A classroom, Petunia realized, probably very like a classroom Lily would have lessons in… some kind of Chemistry or maybe Alchemy… or was it Potions? Petunia could not remember.

A boy, maybe her age or a little older, with bright blue eyes, lay beside a shattered cauldron, a gleaming liquid seeping across the floor. He writhed, screaming in agony, as light shot out from his mouth and eyes. Petunia jerked back, but the vision was not done with her yet.

He _fuzzed_—there was no other word to describe it—as if he were turning into a ghost then and there, and screamed in agony.

The door swung open and in rushed a much younger Professor Augur, followed closely by the long-bearded Hogwarts headmaster Petunia had glimpsed in the hallways of the Order. His beard was auburn instead of white, and Petunia wondered how long ago this had been. The boy on the floor had turned to shadow and smoke, his blue eyes the only remaining vestige of humanity.

"What have you done, John?" cried the headmaster angrily, and set about making a great deal of complicated wiggles with his wand. Augur knelt beside the boy and shook a strange powder into his hand from a little leather pouch.

"I have pierced the veil around the world!" cried John, and Petunia recognized the thunder-rumble voice at once. "I shall See more than ever before! I shall See, Professor Augur, without the need of your funny little tools! I shall be a prophet like Nostradamus and Vablatsky, I shall See everything and know everything!"

"It's out of control! He's dying!" cried Augur. "John! Stop this madness!"

"I See…" cried John, "I See how it ends!" A note of terror rang through his words, lifting at the end of his speech.

He laughed, a crazed, high-pitched cackle at odds with his deep voice. And then, the headmaster leapt back, and Augur shouted a strange incantation, and the Scryer John solidified again with a bang and a flash of lightning.

"No…" he whispered, looking at his clouded hands.

"This is not how you die, John," said Augur.

"No," whispered John. "Though I wish that it was."

A hand on Petunia's shoulder brought her back to reality. She looked down and saw the smoke-gray skin, clouded like the crystal ball, and realized that the Scryer had taken off his hood.

"There, child," he said. "You can See what you wish, if you want it enough. Use that dangerous curiosity of yours, that talent for gossip… this is just another way to find out all the facts you want to know, be it in the future or in the present or in the past. We are Seers… we See what we wish."

"What did you do?" whispered Petunia.

John raised his eyebrows, dark slashes again the cloud gray of his skin. "I took a risk. I tried an ancient and complex ritual, and I performed it incorrectly. Sloppily. I lacked the strength, really, to do it at all, but I would not listen to those who knew better. I could not wait. I was too cocky. Augur, with the help of Albus Dumbledore, pulled me back and saved my life."

"You wanted to See without using a tool," said Petunia, curiously.

"True prophecy comes without the crystal ball. These visions we see, they are only shadows… possibilities. They are not prophecy. Prophecy is a certainty." He turned away. "I wished to make only prophecy, and surpass altogether these tawdry visions. In the end, I only made one—and it concerns me alone."

Petunia did not ask him what it was. The tone of his voice suggested that he would not tell her in any case. After a time he pointed to the crystal ball, and said, "Try again. Focus on Lord Voldemort, and try to See."

His hood shrouded his head once more, and the strange empathy that had sprung between them for a few seconds was gone. Petunia was still curious, but no longer afraid.

She sighed, and put her hands against the smooth surface of the crystal. "Yes, sir," she said, and let the mists swallow her up once more.

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	8. Turning Point

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters belong to J.K. Rowling. I am merely borrowing them.

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MUGGLE

Chapter Seven: Turning Point

Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives.

_**William Dement**_

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Petunia woke from a dark dream, haunted by cloaked and hooded figures with glowing green eyes, her face bathed in a cold sweat. For a long, terrifying moment she struggled to remember how to breathe and when she finally caught her breath shot from the bed and into the lavatory.

When she came back, wiping her mouth, her roommate was awake and the small lamp between their beds was on. "What's the matter, Petunia?" asked Lucy softly. "Do you need the nurse? Every night this week you've woken up and been sick. You've got me quite worried."

Petunia had a crazy urge to laugh—quite worried! When she dreamed every night about what Voldemort did to his victims—when often, the dreams were still not as bad as the reality—when every day she gazed into the crystal ball and wrote down religiously every little detail she could recall about the vision, to have Professor Augur or John tell her later that they had managed to save a few people but many still died… 'quite worried' did not even begin to cover it.

But of course, Lucy knew none of this. To the Muggle world Voldemort didn't exist. They walked around each day completely secure in their little worlds, thinking they were safe from everything. They didn't have to worry about waking up and finding the Dark Mark above their house, glittering green in the night—they didn't have to worry about sifting through the rubble of blasted-apart houses to find scraps of bodies.

Petunia was breaking, and she knew it. There was only so long anyone could stand to think about things like this—and because she was the only Seer who could get even a glimpse of Voldemort's activities she was urged to try and See as much as she possibly could. They had even given her a curious little artifact called a Time-Turner so that she could hide in the gardens or in the attic or somewhere out of the way and spend hours looking into the crystal ball.

The Muggles didn't know Voldemort existed, didn't know what she was doing—and the wizards didn't either. Only a select few knew what Petunia was doing, so that her family could be kept safe. Lily knew nothing—she treated Petunia with the same aggravating superiority as always, never suspecting that her sister was on the front lines of the war; she herself knew little about except for what the professors at Hogwarts chose to relate to the students. Petunia was caught in between, a small part of both worlds and wholly part of neither.

"It's exams," said Petunia finally. "My mum keeps writing me letters telling me how good I need to do in order to get into university and all that, and I don't think I can do that well."

Even to her ears the excuse sounded lame.

Lucy simply looked at her for a long time. Petunia stood there, the taste of bile still on her tongue, and wanted to disappear. "Okay," said Lucy finally. "But Petunia, you know if you ever want to talk to me I'll listen, and I won't tell anyone if that's what you want."

"I can't," said Petunia, the words slipping out before she could stop them.

"_Can't_ tell me?" said Lucy, looking bewildered.

Petunia closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Believe me, Luce, I would if I could. But it's trouble I can't talk about—not yet. I will when I can, I promise." She flopped back down on her bed and curled into a ball, a tear escaping the corner of her eye.

She felt rather than saw Lucy's weight settle on the bed next to her, and felt a hand run gently through her hair. "Whatever it is, it'll be okay," said Lucy softly.

Petunia didn't say anything, but she couldn't stop the tears from coming.

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"You're telling me you haven't Seen anything in days? We've got rumors of a major attack planned but we haven't any idea where!" railed Professor Augur. "How can you tell me that you don't have even a clue what's going to happen! People will die, Petunia!"

"I know that!" bellowed Petunia. Augur, unused to anything except but stammered passivity from her, was shocked into silence, ending his rant mid-sentence. "You think I don't know that? I can't figure out who's going to die this week, I can't see what he's planning, but you know what, if they die it's NOT MY FAULT! I'm not the one who kills them, I'm not a Death Eater, I'm not even a WIZARD! All I can do is try and if I can't see it, well, it's because the bloody future hasn't bloody well happened yet so STOP YOUR YELLING AT ME!"

He stared at her, clearly bemused. John unfolded himself from his chair and, with a slow bow, began to applaud. "Well-put, Miss Evans," he boomed, in his slow, deep voice. "It's about time you stood up for yourself."

Augur shook his head suddenly, like a dog shaking off droplets of water. "Yes," he said. "I'm sorry. You're right, of course."

"I really can't see anything," Petunia said, softer now. "And I'm sorry, but it's like something's blocking my vision. Like a curtain pulled across the window—just little snippets that I can hardly remember. Nothing that will do you any good, just a woman screaming and a man shouting. No faces, no scenery, nothing."

"At least we know something _is_ in the works," murmured Augur, sinking down onto the sofa behind him and burying his face in his hands. Petunia cast a questioning look at John.

"He lost a very close friend in the Dorset raid last week," said the Scryer softly. "The attacks are getting more bold. It's not just terrorism anymore—it's a full-out rebellion."

"It could develop into war if we can't stop it," said Augur. "This has been going on for years now, and it's getting worse every day! People don't know what to do. No one knows what to trust any longer. Anyone could be a Death Eater, anyone."

Petunia didn't answer, just picked at the fabric of the chair she was sitting on. Augur sighed and lay back in the chair, closing his eyes. "Horrors," he said softly and then fell silent.

John shook his smoky head as he went pacing restlessly across the floor. "What are you doing when you graduate from school, Petunia?" he asked. "It's only in a few weeks."

Truthfully, Petunia hadn't even thought about it. She had applied to a few universities and even been accepted by two of them, but her double life distracted her from such things. She had time to make a decision still, but she had no idea what to choose. It was a bit of a surprise that John had even remembered her graduation was coming up.

"Going home for the summer and then on to university, probably," she said carefully.

"Indeed," said John slowly.

"Why do you ask?" Petunia said, wondering at his odd tone of voice.

Augur lifted his head from the back of the sofa and looked straight at her. "If you'd like it there's a spot being held for you at the Ministry in the Department of Mysteries. A paid job, not this volunteer undercover work you've been doing. You'd continue doing what you do now, of course, but we would apprentice you to someone so you'd learn more than a simple crash-course like we did last summer. You might not have the same abilities as the other wizards there, but in the Department of Mysteries, no one would be able to tell. Or care."

_That was a crash course?_ Petunia thought.

"The only catch is," said Augur, "you would have to continue keeping it a secret. Lord Voldemort is particularly against Muggle-borns being allowed into wizarding society, and your family's security would be in jeopardy. You, as a… well, something quite unique… face a great deal of danger from him. Impure blood and all that rubbish."

Petunia swallowed. Night after night she woke up from screaming nightmares… and to have no one at all to speak about it to… it was bad enough now. No one would know what she went through, no one would be able to understand…

"I can't see everything," she said quietly. "Why do you want to give me this job when I can't see everything? People are still going to die."

"No one else can see _anything_, or not half as much as you can, anyway," said Augur. "Madame Devin and Bernard have all but given up. They never See anything anymore. Nothing. You are our only hope, child."

"No," said Petunia. "How do you expect me to keep on doing this? I can't! I can't! No one knows what I do, no one understands anything!"

John whirled around. "I know what you do," he said grimly. "I understand what you are. Who you are. That is all you can ask for. Later there will be recognition. Normality. Once this war is over."

Petunia glared at him. "That's low," she said. "I won't do it, John. I want to go away and ignore this for a while. I don't want it to be my job. I don't want this to be my LIFE!"

"Why not!" cried John. "It is mine! And at least you can return to YOUR life when it gets to be too much for you—" The smoke within him seemed to roil and writhe, twisting and turning malevolently. Petunia quivered, nearly expecting lightning to come shooting out of him and burn her to a crisp.

"That is enough, Scryer," said Augur tiredly, cutting him off in mid-sentence. "Petunia, I think you are upset today. Give it some thought. The offer will stand until you give me a final answer, and I want you to consider it thoroughly. In the meantime, will you please try to find out what you can about the possibility of an upcoming attack?"

Petunia nodded. With a loud crack John Apparated away. Augur sighed. "Be careful," he said, and then he too was gone. Petunia sat for a long time, waiting for the Time Turner's magic to run out, and then shuffled downstairs to her last class of the day, wondering what she would do.

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The mists rose up in the crystal ball, swimming around her reflection. "Come on, you bloody thing," Petunia said, concentrating on the Dark Mark and the Death Eaters. Atrocities committed, atrocities prevented—bloody figures danced in her mind's eye, but nothing appeared in the crystal ball.

She thought of the Scryer and his anger today; it was sudden, unexpected, but then so hers had been also. But she felt in the right still; it was her life after all. She could refuse to fight a war that she should know nothing about in the first place.

Without warning the mists parted—green light shot from the crystal ball, and Petunia, startled, found she could not pull away. What was this? Never before had the crystal done such a thing.

Terror began to creep up in her heart—a pair of slitted eyes like a snake's materialized in the midst of the light.

_I see you at last, little Seer_, hissed a voice from the depths of the crystal, at once like a snake's and a man both.

Petunia knew it well.

"Voldemort!" she cried, and tried to thrust the crystal ball away. But the vision held her fast, no longer under her control.

_Look well, my little Seer_, hissed the Dark Lord. The vision fuzzed and Petunia found herself looking at her own house…

Flames leapt high in the darkness, the Dark Mark glistening in the night above the ruined roof. Dark figures flitted around the ruins, and with a sinking heart Petunia realized that two bodies lay crumpled on the ground. "Mum! Dad!" she screamed, struggling all the harder to free herself of the vision. She had to get away, had to warn the Order of the Phoenix, had to tell someone--!

Voldemort laughed. _Warn who? No one will listen to you any longer, little Muggle. _His eyes met hers once more. _This is no vision you See, filthy Mudblood! It has already happened! It is happening right now! _

"How is it happening now, how, how," wept Petunia. "Let me go!"

_I cannot have you letting the Order know of all my plans_, said Voldemort, the mocking mirth gone completely from his voice. _I think you've ruined my plans enough_.

And the vision went dark, and finally the crystal ball released her. She screamed and thrust it away from her as fast as she could. Tears dripped down her face; she stood up and backed away from the still-glowing crystal, her hands shaking. She had not felt so sick since the first time she had Seen, that day in Lily's room.

The trapdoor down from the school attic refused to open; at last she wrenched it off the hinges in a sudden fit of rage with a strength she hadn't known she possessed. She tiptoed through the dormitories, afraid that the gasping sobs wracking her body would wake someone, but no one heard. Carefully she snuck into the Head's office and dialed her parents' number.

"This line is currently out of service," said the operator's recorded voice, and Petunia slammed the phone down in its cradle.

She heard a sharp crack from outside the window and whirled around in the chair. Then another, and another; low voices floated up to where Petunia sat frozen in the Headmaster's chair. "She's in there somewhere. Find and bring her to the master, that's our orders."

"How do we know which one's her?" said someone else. "I can't tell one Muggle from another."

"We put a Dormancy spell on the school. No one's going to wake up until we find her, and she's not getting past us. Master's been keeping her busy with Legilimency so she'll be the only one awake."

Petunia slithered out of the chair and down to the floor, one hand over her mouth.

"Nice of the Dark Lord… good that he can focus it through a crystal ball. Nobody else could do that!" said the third admiringly.

"What's her name?" said the first one. "We could do a Locator spell if we knew that."

"We just got a home address and a school, idiot. You know Voldemort's been trying to figure out the person who keeps ruining our plans, but the stupid informant didn't tell us anything else but where to find her," said the second. "Guard the doors while we search the place."

Petunia tried to keep her heart from leaping out of her mouth—someone had betrayed her—but not totally. They were giving her a chance to escape. She forced herself to stop panicking and think logically. There were enough stories of people sneaking out to meet up with boys that _one_ of them had to be true, and useful.

The laundry—no, that wouldn't work. It only got picked up during the day.

The trash chute—no, couldn't. The dumpsters were right next to the doors where the Death Eaters were talking.

The chimney—but how to get off the roof?

The sewers—a possibility… probably the best possibility. A drain in the cellar led right into the sewer system. Petunia and her friends had often wondered why, but right now she didn't care. She had even taken it out before and knew how to get all the way into town.

Listening at the door, she heard nothing, so she slipped out into the corridor. Halfway to the kitchens, where the cellar door was, she heard footsteps coming. There was nowhere to go; the hall was only for gym lockers! Petunia clapped her hands over her mouth. They were on the stairs—they were coming—Lucy's locker was right next to her… She knew the combination, Lucy always used the same combination, or was that Maggie? She hoped it was Lucy… she didn't know where Maggie's locker was. With trembling hands she spun the dial around, trying to be quiet as voices echoed down the stairwell. 28, 31, was it six or seven? Six didn't work. She spun it again…

The lock clicked open! Petunia slid into the locker and held the door to keep it from locking her in as the voices echoed on the landing. The footsteps went past the row of lockers once, twice, and then she heard the door to the stairwell slam shut again. Hoping desperately that they wouldn't come this way again she stayed where she was for a count of two hundred and then carefully eased the door open.

Locking it again, Petunia slipped down the rest of the hallway and into the kitchens. Thanking whatever luck had allowed her to make it this far, she fairly ran down the stairs of the cellar and dropped with a splash into the sewer.

Town was only a mile or so—she could make it. She had to make it.

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	9. Desperate Measures

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters belong to J.K. Rowling. I am merely borrowing them.

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MUGGLE

Chapter Eight: Desperate Measures

_Desperate affairs require desperate remedies. _

_Horatio Nelson_

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When Petunia finally stumbled out of the sewer, wet and dirty and shivering, she wanted nothing more than to collapse onto the ground. She wanted to scream, wanted to cry, wanted to fall into her mother and father's arms and let them fix everything wrong with the world. She had believed when she was younger that they could do just that—that nothing could ever harm her.

"_This line is currently out of service_," said the operator's voice in her head, the flat, toneless voice more mocking than any sarcasm could ever possibly be. She fought down a sudden rise of nausea and looked around at the quiet, sleeping town. Did she dare go to the police?

Officer, I saw my parents' house burn to the ground in a crystal ball and now the minions of an evil Dark Lord are trying to kill me too.

That would go down wonderfully... and even if they did believe her, by some extraordinary chance, what could ordinary Muggle policemen do against Death Eaters? They'd never even get a shot off. Petunia had seen, in the crystal ball, just what Voldemort's minions did to cops. She had no desire at all to watch it in real life.

She swallowed hard and sat down on the curb, wrapping her arms around herself. The night sky above her shimmered with stars, just pinpoints of diamond on black velvet. No Dark Mark to cast the world in sickly green light—but, Petunia wondered, would she see it above the school when they failed to find her? The thought of the Death Eaters spurred her into action once more. She walked the streets, keeping to the shadows, with one eye out for a payphone. Only once did she ever see anyone else, and that was a shuffling stranger who gave off a strong scent of whiskey as he passed.

She found a phone booth outside a petrol station and collect-called the number Augur had given her—and then slammed the phone back into its cradle, a horrible thought leaping into her mind just as the operator asked for her name. Someone had betrayed her—and the only people who knew she was here were the members of the Order of the Phoenix. She didn't dare call the headquarters... who knew if the traitor was lurking in wait even now?

Petunia slumped against the side of the phone booth, racking her brains for something, anything, to do. Home—even if Voldemort had lied to her, and her parents were still alive—was out. He would expect her to go there. She could not go back to school. She could not go to the Order of the Phoenix.

So that left only two other places where she could expect to find wizards—Diagon Alley, which was out because she didn't remember where it was...

... and Hogwarts. She could find Platform Nine and Three-Quarters in her sleep, having been dragged there time after time to drop off or greet Lily. Someone would be able to help her there—she could find the legendary headmaster, the only one who Voldemort feared—and he would know what to do.

Just one problem remained—how to get to London?

The sign above the pumps sparked suddenly, sending a shower of sparks down onto a row of cars parked below. The light shone into the empty garage, glinting off of a row of shiny keys hanging just inside the door.

A glimmer of an idea swirled into Petunia's head...

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Three hours later she pulled into a parking spot outside King's Cross, white-faced and shaking and totally amazed at her own daring. The little Ford Anglia shuddered to a stop. For a moment Petunia rested her head on the steering wheel, then pulled the keys out and hid them under the seat. Locking the door behind her, she stumbled out of the car and headed for the station.

Luck had been on her side again.

The door to the garage had been locked—but the window at the side hadn't. It was a slim fit—but Petunia was a thin girl, and managed to slip in with little trouble. No one had seen her, or if they had no one had done anything about it. With keys in hand she had grabbed a set and scrambled back outside, trying each in turn until she felt them slip cleanly into the lock and heard the tumblers fall into place as the door opened.

With a roar the engine had started, shuddering and bucking, but running well enough... and she was off, taking the road toward London at precisely the speed limit, driving with a deadly calm that surprised her somewhere deep inside.

Halfway there she had suddenly realized exactly what she was doing—_she had stolen a car, for heavens' sakes!—_but it had not been enough to stop her. The owners would find it eventually—and if not, she could always come back later and drive it home to them. If she wasn't arrested first.

And, Petunia amended further, if there was a later.

She trudged through King's Cross, not caring that the few people there this early in the morning all stopped and stared at the grimy, bedraggled girl as she went past them, leaving muddy footprints in her wake. Her school uniform had long since stopped pretending to be any sort of recognizable garment and now simply hung off of her like a gray, sewer-stained sack.

She found Platforms 9 and 10 and, cautiously, poked at the barrier between them. Her finger met hard brick for a split second and then, slowly, as if the magic had decided she was wizard enough to get through, sank into the barrier. Petunia went through with her eyes shut tight and breathed a sigh of relief when opened them to see the familiar Hogwarts train sitting silently on the tracks.

"May I ask what you're doing here, miss?" said a gruff voice behind her. Petunia whirled around to find a dark-cloaked figure aiming a wand straight at her, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. "How did you get through the barrier?"

"I've seen people go through it a hundred times," snapped Petunia, all her patience gone. "I need to see Headmaster Dumbledore at once!"

"You can't just come in here and demand that, girl!" cried the guard. "He's at Hogwarts, not here, for one thing!"

"Can you call him?" asked Petunia.

"Call him? _Call him_?" blustered the guard. "Just who do you think you are?"

"I have information for him," she said, that deadly calm taking over once more. "Voldemort is planning an attack. He may already have begun. It concerns a student of Hogwarts—"

"Now look here, miss," he snapped, "you have no right to just barge in here and—" With a start the guard suddenly straightened, eyes going wide, and stared at her as if he had seen a ghost. "You said his name! Get out of here! Now!"

"Not until I see Dumbledore!" Petunia cried. "I can do a lot worse than just say _Voldemort's_ name!"

"A little lass like you?" growled the guard. "Try it, miss. I'll Stun you, I will, girl or no."

"Call Dumbledore, and I won't do anything."

"I'm not going to bother the Headmaster with anything so trivial as what you've got to say, I'm sure."

Petunia's jaw tightened. "Very well then," she said. "How would you like it if I just stood half in and half out of the barrier and told every Muggle walking by exactly what was inside?" She got two steps before she felt the spell hit her, and thought as she fell, _Jumpy, aren't they?_

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"Miss Evans," said a voice.

_No_, thought Petunia. _I don't want to wake up ever again._

"Miss Evans, I really must insist that you wake up." A hand touched her shoulder, and with a groan to show the extent of her annoyance Petunia opened her eyes.

A wrinkled old face with half-moon glasses and a long white beard with hints of auburn swam above her. "I regret that the King's Cross guards are so quick to spell first and ask questions later, Miss Evans," said Dumbledore. "You will be all right in a few minutes."

He offered a hand, and she took it, pulling herself up into a sitting position. She took in her surroundings and realized that she was still on Platform Nine and Three Quarters. Gray morning light filtered down on the tracks. Petunia looked at the clock and saw the time was only seven; she could not have been out for more than a half hour or so.

Dumbledore watched her with a twinkle in his old eyes, head cocked to one side just like a little boy. Petunia returned his gaze, somewhat surprised that he seemed to know who she was. Only once had she even seen him, and that had been little more than a quick pass-by in the corridor of the headquarters of the Order.

Her sense of character—of curiosity about people and their lives—none of it told her anything about Dumbledore. He was completely and totally unique, a type of person she had never before encountered. She could not wonder about his life, wonder what his secrets were and what he did every day; all she could do was gaze at the bearded old face and marvel at the strength and wisdom that hid behind that little-boy twinkle.

"So he did call you after all," said Petunia.

"No," replied Dumbledore, "but I was looking for you. I have a little talent for scrying, myself. Not like looking into the future, mind you, but I can see where someone is in the present. And luckily for me, you chose a rather convenient refuge." He slipped his outer robe from his shoulders and slipped it around hers—Petunia hadn't even noticed she was shivering.

"If you were looking for me..." said Petunia slowly, the words heavy on her lips, "...then what I saw was true?"

Dumbledore put a hand on her shoulder and gripped tightly. "If you are referring to the destruction of your parents' house, then yes. I am sorry to report, Miss Evans, that we were not in time to save them."

Petunia felt the tears pricking at the corner of her eyes.

"_This line is currently out of service_," whispered the operator in her mind.

"They were betrayed," she whispered. "Someone told Voldemort about them—about me—they sent Death Eaters to my school, to try and capture me."

"Your school is safe," said Dumbledore, his hand still tight on her shoulder, his eyes fixed on hers. "We arrived there only a short time after the Death Eaters."

So, her flight had been in vain. If she had returned to the school—

"You could not have known it was safe," Dumbledore said firmly. "You did well, coming here. We got there as quickly as we could, hoping they had not managed to find you among the rest of the Muggles. When we could not find you either, we hoped you had escaped—we feared you had been taken."

"Voldemort tried," she said softly. "The traitor did not tell him my name. And I gather that they spelled first and asked questions later when they killed my parents. I don't think they know exactly who I am, sir, though I could be wrong."

"That is some saving grace," Dumbledore replied. He let go of her shoulder and stood up slowly, putting out a hand to help her to her feet.

"Where are you taking me?" asked Petunia as he led her across the platform to the barrier.

"To Hogwarts," said Dumbledore. "I will not risk the traitor discovering you are alive—your whereabouts must be kept secret until we can find out more about the situation."

"Will I see Lily?" asked Petunia, at once desperately wanting her sister and at the same time, hoping she never saw her again.

Dumbledore's shoulders sagged a tiny bit. "Soon. Right now I cannot allow anyone to learn of your whereabouts at the moment. I will tell her you are safe—but not where you are. Even Hogwarts is not entirely secure from Voldemort's prying eyes. He cannot reach you there, never fear, but information has a way of sneaking through the smallest crack."

Petunia wondered what he had told her school—and decided she didn't care. There would be time later for those questions. As he took her through King's Cross, the both of them completely unnoticed by the people waiting for their trains, her mind fuzzed and swam with exhaustion, her body sore and her limbs aching. She hardly noticed when Dumbledore pointed his wand at a discarded tin can and said, "_Colloportus!_"

There would be time later for questions about all of that—and there would be time later to ask the most important question of all, the one single, simple question that rang in her ears and threatened to drown all else out. She felt a jerk at her navel and the world blurred around her... and still the question hissed snake-like in her ears...

_Who?_

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	10. Secrets and Spells

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters belong to J.K. Rowling. I am merely borrowing them.

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MUGGLE

Chapter Nine: Secrets and Spells

_Look in the mirror. The face that pins you with its double gaze reveals a chastening secret. _

_**Diane Ackerman**_

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The room Dumbledore led her to in Hogwarts was lovely, with a giant bed covered with velvety-soft blankets and hung with long, heavy red curtains. A squashy matching armchair sat before a crackling fire; a glistening bathroom shone through the door to the next room. Petunia fell onto the bed as Dumbledore slipped out, saying "I will return soon. Rest while you can," and fell asleep without even bothering to take off her shoes.

When she woke, she found a set of wizarding robes laid out for her on the armchair. They looked as though they had once been someone's school robes, but the distinguishing colored piping round the top and the distinctive House badge had been removed. Petunia picked them up, feeling slightly ill at the sight of them. Lily had robes like this—her mother always complained that she didn't know how to fold them when she packed her daughter's trunk.

But her own clothes were completely ruined—torn, muddy, and a definite smell of sewer still rose from them. Petunia showered in the gorgeous bathroom and reluctantly, pulled on the Hogwarts uniform.

She stared at herself in the mirror. Long nose, horsy teeth, blonde hair that had just a hint of Lily's vibrant red—just the same as always. But as a whole, she could be a student of Hogwarts. No longer the ordinary, loved-but-overlooked daughter whom no one really expected anything of. No longer the Muggle—something _special_.

Petunia knew perfectly well she would never have fit in at Hogwarts. If she had been a strong enough Seer then they would have sent a letter. She never would have gone to St. Mary's at all. And when Lily's letter came, it would have been expected... it wouldn't be new. It would be routine by then, the younger sister following in her older sister's footsteps, the older complaining of the annoyance but secretly so proud of the younger...

But no.

Her vision had been spoiled by that terrible letter, snatched away in one quick rip of an envelope. Lily had gone off on her own, unafraid even without an older sister to guide her way... Lily had to be _special._

And because she was _special_, she had in turn awakened Petunia's own gifts. Petunia had Seen... and been Seen in turn, been betrayed... and now, her world had flipped upside down.

_You can ignore me forever if only you'll come back_, Petunia whispered silently to the mirror, seeing not her own face but leaping flames and the Dark Mark glowing in the sky. _I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..._

She turned sharply at the knock on the door. "Miss Evans?" said Dumbledore, poking his head in like some kind of absurd butler. "Feeling better? I can have Madame Pomfrey—er, our nurse—come if you need anything fixed up. Or would you like something to eat?"

"What did you tell my school?" asked Petunia, ignoring his question. "What have you told Lily? Does she know anything about what's going on?" Her voice cracked on the last words, and she turned around again so he would not see the tears brimming in her eyes.

Dumbledore came all the way into the room and sat on the squashy armchair. "Your school believes that a family friend came to get you after hearing of the accident." He leaned on one arm and stared into the flames crackling merrily in the fireplace. "Your sister is quite upset, and understandably so. Though I told her myself early this morning, the incident was reported in the wizarding world newspaper _The Daily Prophet, _and so I believe she has been the recipient of a considerable amount of taxing questions and concerns. While well-meant, I'm sure, such things can be worse than grief sometimes."

"May I see her?" asked Petunia, facing the old wizard again, hoping that he would say yes and at the same time wishing he would say no. She did not know what she would say to her sister—it had been so long since they had spoken like sisters should—but she thought that Lily probably needed her, needed someone familiar.

And, she thought sadly, there was no one else.

Dumbledore's blue eyes fixed upon her, deadly intense in their direct gaze, and for a moment he did not say anything.

"You must understand, Miss Evans," said Dumbledore at last, "that I cannot allow you to tell her of anything you have been doing in the service of the Order. A great deal of our operation depends on complete secrecy. And though I feel certain I can trust you to keep my trust, I do not trust our enemies."

"I won't tell her anything," Petunia said, rather sullenly.

"I require a measure of security beyond your word, I'm afraid," said Dumbledore. He stood up and Petunia found herself staring down the long wooden point of a wand. "_Obscurum quietus!"_

A blue light snicked out of the wand and washed over her; Petunia felt the heat and shuddered violently. Unlike the Stunning spell, she did not pass out, but she fell to her knees and coughed fiercely. Every one of the visions she had ever Seen raced past her eyes, blue light fogging up her vision. At long last the wretched fog cleared and she could see once more.

"What did you do to me?" cried Petunia, leaping up from the carpet and backing away from Dumbledore.

He put his wand back into the pocket of his robes. "I do apologize. But I cannot have your sister knowing of the Order and possibly leaking our operations to someone in Hogwarts who has more sympathy towards Voldemort and his Death Eaters. She has been similarly enchanted to keep your whereabouts secret. She will not be able to tell anyone you are here."

Petunia's eyes widened. "You're just as bad as they are, enchanting defenseless people to do what you want! At least they think they're serving him out of loyalty! This is censorship, pure and simple! You think Muggles can't be trusted! Honestly, I'm not going to say anything about—acck!" She choked on the words _the Order of the Phoenix_ and shot the old wizard a look of pure fury.

Dumbledore's eyes sparked angrily. "It is a war, Miss Evans. Come with me and I will take you to your sister."

Teeming with rage, Petunia followed him because she could think of nothing else to do. They went through stone corridors, so ancient that she could smell the must of the aged rocks and feel the floor worn down from centuries of feet passing over it. At any other time Petunia might have been interested to see Lily's school—she would never have admitted it to Lily, but nonetheless would have liked to see it. Right now she wanted to break the whole thing into bits.

Bitterly she thought she almost agreed with Voldemort; if he had his way and Muggle-born people were kept out of the wizarding world then none of this ever would have happened. She would be happily engaged in studying for finals and enjoying the last few weeks of school before graduating with her friends at St. Mary's, Lily clapping from the audience as she received her diploma from the Headmaster.

Would they even let her go back to school in time to graduate? Or would Dumbledore keep on with hiding her from Voldemort and the Death Eaters until she rotted away in this castle, her passing unremarked upon because the only people who knew she was here couldn't say anything?

They reached a door marked "Hospital Wing" and Dumbledore went right in, not even bothering to knock. Inside long rows of beds lined the walls, and on the very last one a shock of bright red hair shone bright against a huddled mass of black Hogwarts robes.

"Miss Evans?" said Dumbledore softly. "Miss Evans, your sister is here."

Lily sat up and turned around, her eyes widening to see Petunia standing there dressed in wizarding robes. Dumbledore nodded to both of them and strode out; Petunia heard clearly the click of the lock as he shut the door, and sighed.

"How did you get here?" Lily asked, her eyes sweeping up and down her sister's body as if unable to believe the sight.

"Dumbledore brought me," said Petunia. "From my school."

"I suppose he wanted to keep you safe from You-Know-Who," Lily said dubiously.

Her eyes were suspiciously bright and red, and her face rather pale. Petunia suspected she'd been crying. "Petunia, I'm so sorry," Lily said, her voice breaking a little. "Petunia, it's my fault they're dead, I never should have come here. You-Know-Who hates Muggle-borns, he must have found out somehow, I don't know why he would have done anything to them because I've never done anything to fight him, nothing, but who knows with a crazy madman like that?"

Petunia hadn't even realized she was going to spill the whole story to her sister—Augur, the Order, everything—until she started coughing so hard she had to sit down on one of the beds.

Damn Dumbledore, he'd been right.

The shock took her by surprise and even though she had been thinking only moments ago that it was Lily's fault, this was wrong. Voldemort had not killed their parents because of Lily's being Muggle-born; she doubted he even knew about Lily. Maybe the chain of events had been started because of Lily—but it was not her fault.

But she couldn't tell her sister that, though she desperately wanted to explain just why it wasn't Lily's fault. All her anger had evaporated at the sight of Lily's tear-stained face and wide, grief-stricken eyes.

Lily, crying again, hopped from her bed to Petunia's and put her arms around her sister as she struggled to stop the coughing fit. "Please forgive me, Petunia, please, I'm sorry, please don't hate me, I should never have opened that letter, I should have gone to St. Mary's with you!"

All exactly what Petunia had been thinking.

"No," she said, finally getting her breath back. "It's not your fault—it's not." She had meant to say, _It's Voldemort's_, but apparently even that was too much under Dumbledore's spell.

Lily's arms tightened around her. "I'm glad you're here, Petunia," she said softly.

Petunia took her sister's hands and clutched them tightly. "I missed you," she said, meaning more than simply the events of the past few days.

"What are we going to do?" whispered Lily. "There's nowhere we can go." A grandmother neither of them had ever met had been their last living relative besides their parents, and she had died years ago.

"I'm eighteen soon," Petunia said slowly. "I can live on my own. We'll have money from Mum and Dad's will, and from the insurance for the house... I can get a flat somewhere. A job. You can come stay with me during holidays."

"Where?" said Lily.

"I don't know," Petunia said. "London, maybe."

Though she couldn't tell Lily at the moment, of course, she was thinking of the job Augur had offered her at the Ministry of Magic. Surely they would let her tell Lily then... and both of them could live in the wizarding world, Muggle parents no longer a tip-off to humbler origins.

Still, Petunia wondered, did she really want to lose herself in the war again? Immersed in the fight, she would no longer be split between two worlds, neither wholly part of one nor the other, but she had no friends in the wizarding world. She knew only bits and pieces of it, and she would have to rely on Lily for a great deal because she could do no real magic of her own.

It would keep them together, though... and for that, it might be worth it.

Might.

Petunia sighed, wondering if this was the time to decide. She thought not. "We can figure it all out later," said Petunia softly. A quiet sob came from her sister, and for a long moment Petunia simply let her cry. She stroked her sister's hair, wishing she had her crystal ball for one reason, and one alone: she had absolutely no idea what would happen next—and with that, no clue what to do about anything at all.

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	11. The Betrayer Revealed

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters belong to J.K. Rowling. I am merely borrowing them.

A/N: Half-Blood Prince… amazing! Totally excellent, I thought, and well worth the wait. Unfortunately due to an interview with Rowling posted on Mugglenet this story no longer fits into canon, but I hope you all enjoy it anyway.

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MUGGLE

Chapter Ten: The Betrayer Revealed

The treacherous are ever distrustful.

J. R. R. Tolkien

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The sisters talked for a long time—well, Lily talked, and Petunia listened. Though she already knew a good deal of what Lily was telling her, she could not say anything due to Dumbledore's spell. What she hadn't known was just how close the students of Hogwarts had been to the action. Several of Lily's friends had left, taken from school by their parents, and others had been killed during summer holiday, Christmas, and Easter break. Many had lost a friend or relative; Lily was by no means the first to lose a parent.

She was, however, the first to be completely orphaned. Petunia felt a hot wave of fury and then grief rise over her as Lily spoke, Voldemort's face clear in her mind. He needed to die—deserved to die—and she wished that she could be the one to kill him. As soon as the thought rose, Petunia knew how foolish it was; after all, she was no powerful wand-wielding wizard with a ready supply of curses and jinxes at his disposal.

When Dumbledore returned for her it was almost a relief. Her anger was fierce and fiery, twisting her insides with a fury that frightened her a little bit. It felt like she had been angry forever, instead of just for a few minutes, and she did not speak as the old wizard led her back to the guest room, afraid she would say something she would later regret. He did not speak until they reached the room; as Petunia made to close the door Dumbledore caught it and held it open.

"I believe the Ministry of Magic has made you an offer, Miss Evans," he said, gazing down with ice-blue eyes. "Will you accept it?"

Petunia swallowed, all her anger suddenly replaced by cold fear. She did not know what to do at all… but there was Lily to think of, and so she said, "Yes, I believe I will." She intended to say more, but the spell stopped any more specifics coming out of her mouth.

For a moment she saw a strange expression in Dumbledore's eyes, almost like sadness, and then it was gone. "I will send Professor Augur to see you as soon as he is available, then," he said, and pulled the door shut.

Petunia stared at the wood of the door for a long moment, completely unnerved by the old wizard. Obviously he thought she had made the wrong decision, but why? She did not understand him—she did not _want_ to understand him any longer, she just wanted things back to normal.

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Only a short time later a knock sounded at her door. Surprised that the Professor had come so quickly, Petunia leapt up from the bed to answer it.

"Professor Augur?" she said eagerly, pulling the door open.

But the salt-and-pepper-haired wizard was not there; instead, the hulking shadow of the Scryer stood before her door. "Petunia," he said gravely. "There you are."

"Have you come to take me to see the Professor?" she asked, wondering at his presence.

The Scryer's shoulders jerked a tiny bit, almost as if he were startled. But he nodded slowly and finally said, "Yes, I have. Come with me."

"Where are we going, John?" Petunia asked, sliding out into the corridor behind him and trotting to keep up with his long strides.

He took a long time answering again, seeming very distant. "We are going to the Divination Tower here at Hogwarts. Augur will be there. His office is rather remote."

His tone was clipped, strident; Petunia shivered slightly and did not speak again. They descended a grand staircase and went past a wide-open set of doors, where Petunia saw hundreds of children sitting at four long tables, each dressed in a set of black robes like her own. They were talking animatedly, taking great bites of dinner in between laughs. Petunia spied her sister, sitting at the very end of the table farthest from the door, playing with her food and not speaking. She waved, but Lily did not see, and then they were past the doors and heading up another set of stairs.

A few students came clattering down the stair, late for supper. They rushed past Petunia and the Scryer without pausing to look, as if they hadn't even noticed their presence. Petunia had grown used to the Scryer's black cloak and hooded face but she doubted the students of Hogwarts saw much of him—he looked rather like a dementor at the moment. Augur had shown her a picture once to illustrate some level of meaning to a vision that she had not understood at the time, and the description matched John well.

The students would not ignore such a thing—a tiny suspicion began to grow in the back of Petunia's mind. Could they even _see _them? A fat little man with a walrus mustache—a teacher, most likely—swept by without noticing them, and Petunia's insides went cold. She stopped as they reached the top of the stairs. The Scryer spoke a few words and a trapdoor descended from the ceiling above.

"Augur's office is up here," he said quietly.

Petunia stayed where she was. "How did you know I was here?" she said quietly. "Dumbledore said no one would know."

The Scryer froze with one foot on the bottom step and turned around. "He told us, my dear. He told us the Dark Lord had threatened you in the crystal ball, that you had escaped from your school and come to him."

"Really…" said Petunia. "He told you that, did he?"

"Yes," said the Scryer, sounding impatient. "Do you want to talk to the Professor or not?"

Petunia turned tail and ran, but before she got very far at all she felt a sharp pain on her back and crashed to the floor, completely paralyzed. John was the traitor, how else would he know…? He had made a slip, had told her something that the Headmaster did not know, that no one except the Death Eaters would have known…

She had never told Dumbledore that Voldemort had been able to talk to her through the crystal ball.

She saw the walls whirl and realized she was being lifted into the air; the stairs whizzed by below her and Petunia hoped desperately that she would not be sick, as she could not open her mouth.

The spell loosened as the trapdoor banged shut behind them. Petunia lay for a moment on the floor as tingles radiated through her awakening arms and legs, trying not to cry and failing. "You betrayed me," she said. "You told—!" And here Dumbledore's infernal spell came back into play, and she could not speak Voldemort's name for coughing.

The Scryer did not seem to notice. "I did," he said. "It's a pity you've realized it. But it doesn't matter any longer."

"Why?" Petunia raged, lifting herself up on her elbows and glaring at him. "What did I ever do to you?"

He whirled around and planted a foot firmly on her chest, holding her down so that the breath was forced from her lungs. "You pitiful little Muggle," he hissed. "You would give up your one chance at something greater! You would go back to your quiet life in complete obscurity, just so you didn't have to feel as though you were alone.

"I had hoped with this impetus you would take the Ministry job, keep on working… keep on Seeing… keep you close to me until I discovered what I needed to know…"

His foot pressed harder. Petunia whimpered. "Do you know why Madame Devin and Bernard have been losing their ability to See? Because the Dark Lord uses Legilimency to cloud their vision. He would have done the same with you, too, except I have kept him from you. It is a curious side effect of this"—here he swept his hand up and down his shadowy form—"that I should be able to block some visions when I so choose, whether they are mine or someone else's. And so I stopped you when I knew you would be in danger, when the Dark Lord might see you. Did you not wonder why you were progressing so slowly when that first vision came so easily? I felt your power at once; I came to find you; I led you home that rainy night!"

His blue eyes sparked dangerously. "It grows more difficult the longer I do it, though, and at last I have run out of time. I had hoped the Ministry would protect you, so I leaked information to the Dark Lord.

"But I needn't have bothered," he went on, with a dry laugh. "I needn't have bothered at all. Do you remember what I told you about my one true Prophecy, Petunia?"

Petunia shivered, tears running down her cheeks. The pressure on her chest eased a tiny bit, and she nodded. "I can't say, though—Dumbledore—spell," she managed.

The smoke within him roiled. "The meddling old fool. I told you it was a matter for me and me alone, didn't I?" Again his foot came down harder; Petunia felt a crack and cried out in pain. "I Saw myself breaching the veil at last! What I lacked the strength for the first time, I can do now, with your… help… The Dark Lord told me what to do, how to complete it! He knows everything! It will be the end of my mortal life—but I will begin anew—I will See all!"

His voice went up and up in pitch as he spoke—Petunia whimpered and sobbed, her mind racing, trying to get out of this somehow and seeing absolutely no way.

"I thank you for your powers, my dear," said the Scryer, and pointed his wand at her. "Imperio!"

And suddenly Petunia's mind was awash with white fog; as if watching herself from somewhere far away she saw a crystal ball float into view…

What can you See? whispered the voice in her mind.

Petunia could not tear her eyes away—green light blinded her, and again she Saw the vision of Voldemort standing over her sister's dead body. Somewhere far away she heard the Scryer laugh, and then the vision vanished like a candle blown out in a sudden breath of wind. The white fog flew after it and she snapped back into her body with a gasp. John had lit up like a Christmas tree, his eyes sparking blue fire into the darkness of the room. Petunia could not see the walls, could not even move, could not make a sound—!

And as she had seen in her vision last summer, the Scryer's smoky form roiled and writhed like storm clouds; a brilliant blue light blazed forth from him, cracking him into pieces before her eyes. Petunia screamed silently as she realized that light was streaming from her body as well—

--and then, a sharp bang, a shout, and the Scryer's eyes widened. "You fool, no!" he cried, and then as quick as lightning, vanished into thin air, taking with him the darkness and the blue light.

Petunia felt her limbs loosen; she lay shuddering and gasping until Professor Augur's face drifted into view above her. "Good heavens, child, what happened?" he asked, looking shocked. Behind him Petunia could see Dumbledore searching the room, his old nose wrinkled in disgust.

She could not speak; Dumbledore said for her, "I believe John attempted to finish the spell he began so many long years ago." Petunia nodded and wiped her nose on her sleeve. She thought she might be sick, and retched forward as Augur leapt out of the way just in time.

"I cannot believe it," said Augur shakily. "How did he find her?"

"He must have scryed for her, and I did not expect anyone to come here looking for her," said Dumbledore solemnly. "And of course I did not expect it from John… Am I correct in supposing, Petunia, that he is—was—our traitor?"

She nodded and buried her head in her arms. Above her, softly, Dumbledore said, "I will want you to tell me everything, Petunia. I will release the spell on you."

Petunia looked up, a wild anger rushing through her veins. "Sonorus obscurum," added Dumbledore quietly. "What did he say to you, Miss Evans?"

"Voldemort told him what to do," said Petunia sharply, finally finding her voice. "He was going to do the same in any case, he just wanted me where he could keep an eye on me until he figured it out. That's all I know."

"Are you certain?" said Dumbledore.

Petunia laughed, leaping to her feet and backing away. "What else do you want, you old fool? You wizards, you're all alike! Voldemort kills people but you are just as bad! You manipulate me, you censor me—you took my sister from me! My parents would be alive if not for you!"

Dumbledore gazed at her with icy eyes; Augur looked shocked. "Petunia," said Augur hesitantly, "you don't mean that, of course!"

Petunia was beyond rage; she stormed to the door, feeling her gorge rise as she passed a charred spot on the floor that was all that remained of the Scryer. "I mean every word," she said. "As soon as you let me leave this hideous place I am done with the wizarding world. Freaks, all of you. The world would be better off without you!"

"Obscurum quietus," said Dumbledore softly, pointing his wand directly at her. Petunia shuddered and said viciously, "Exactly. Don't worry, I don't want to tell anyone about you."

And she slammed the door, leaving the two wizards stony-faced and resolute, kneeling on the floor amidst the charred remains of the dead traitor.

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Two more chapters to go, I think. I will attempt to have them up soon, at least before the year-mark of the first chapter!


	12. A Muggle and a Freak

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters belong to J.K. Rowling. I am merely borrowing them.

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MUGGLE

Chapter Eleven: A Muggle and a Freak

_A coward turns away, but a brave man's choice is danger. _

_Euripides_

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As the crowd filed out of the church, Petunia felt a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"Lily," she said, turning.

Her sister's face was chalk-pale, her green eyes red-rimmed and wet with tears. She looked odd in Muggle clothing, though it was the same black as her Hogwarts uniform, speckled with rain from the gray day.

"What happened to the flat in London, Petunia? What am I supposed to do during holidays?" demanded Lily, her voice rising higher with every word. "You're my only relative left! How can you just leave me alone?"

Petunia did not look at her; she started toward the parking lot, where she knew a Ministry of Magic witch was waiting to take Lily to a wizarding home for the summer. "I can't take care of you," she said dully. "I don't know how to deal with your… weirdness. You'll be happier with your own kind."

"You're my kind!" shouted Lily. People turned and stared, but Petunia knew that would not stop her sister. She burned with embarrassment enough for the both of them. "You can't just _abandon _me!"

With a firm hand Petunia grabbed her sister's arm and dragged her behind a clump of trees planted at the entrance to the cemetery. Lily dug in her heels, but Petunia knew this trick and suddenly let go, so her little sister fell backwards. Lily landed splat in a puddle and instead of leaping up in anger simply sat there, tears running down her cheeks.

"How can you do this, Petunia? You're all I have left!" cried Lily. "I don't want to go to some foster home! I want to stay with you!"

"Listen to me," Petunia said, staring down at her. "The only way they'll let you stay with me is if you give it all up and drop out of your school. I'm a Muggle, Lily. I'm not like you. I don't do parlour tricks and call them magic or waste my years in school learning rubbish to make things float and teacups bite!"

"It's not a waste," Lily said, but Petunia went on.

"I'm not a witch, I'm normal! I'm happy being normal! And with the way things are going I think you'd be a lot better off being normal too!"

"What do you mean, the way things are going?" said Lily heatedly. "You mean the war? Even You-Know-Who wouldn't dare attack a school, especially when Dumbledore's the Headmaster. Everyone says he's the only person You-Know-Who's ever been afraid of!"

"And what happens when you're out of school?" asked Petunia. Dumbledore's spell—Petunia had come to think of it as Dumbledore's _curse_—prevented her telling any specifics. She knew Voldemort wouldn't hesitate to kill every single student in that school if the opportunity presented itself.

"Lily," Petunia continued, "what happens when you grow up and the same people who killed Mum and Dad come after you?"

Lily faltered, her bottom lip trembling. But she raised her eyes from the ground and met Petunia's gaze. "I won't just run away, Petunia."

Lily knew nothing of what Petunia had been through, and still her words rankled; an accusation, biting deep.

Not deep enough, though.

"Freak," said Petunia angrily, striding out of the trees. "You never wanted to listen to me." She turned on her heel and spat at Lily, "I hope when you face him, you'll remember that I warned you. And then you'll wish you'd listened."

She spun around again, heading toward the parking lot, calling over her shoulder, "Until then, keep your freaky magic and your freaky friends and your whole freaky WORLD away from me!" Heads turned, and for once in her life Petunia didn't care.

Lily, still sitting in the puddle, watched her drive away. Once Petunia was out of sight of the church she pulled the car to the side of the road, leaned her head against the steering wheel, and wept until the drizzle turned to rain and the cloudy day melted into dark night.

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	13. Epilogue

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters belong to J.K. Rowling. I am merely borrowing them.

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MUGGLE

Epilogue

_The best way to predict the future is to invent it. _

--Alan Kay 

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Petunia, awake in bed that night as Vernon snored peacefully beside her, saw that fateful day in her mind as vividly as if she were still there, Lily's pale, mud-spattered face receding into the distance. At last she slipped from the bed and gently, so gently, took the box containing the crystal ball from the closet.

As she passed Dudley's door she peeked in; her son slept silently and peacefully, his blanket clutched in one hand and bunched around his arm. She set the box down and went to straighten it out, but her foot bumped the basket on the floor where Harry slept, his tiny face furrowed.

_Raise him as your own_, Dumbledore's letter said. Petunia's insides writhed. So presumptuous, that man, so completely self-assured that everyone would do exactly what he wanted… the first letter she had received from him, years ago, had simply said, _Just in case, _and inside the brown box that accompanied the letter, the crystal ball.

She fixed Dudley's blanket, settling a soft kiss on his forehead. He mumbled softly in his sleep and Petunia smiled. She crept out of his room, ignoring Harry's soft whimper from his basket on the floor, and went downstairs with the box tucked under her arm.

Leaving the lights off in case someone passed by and saw her, Petunia pulled the top from the box and sat down on her spotless sofa. The spicy incense wafting from the silk scarf covering it seemed out of place in the tidy Muggle living room.

Petunia wondered what she was doing—but before she could think another thought about it, her hands were caressing the smooth crystal and lifting the ball from its box.

_Harry Potter_.

Her lips formed the words silently, and the familiar mist rose around her. It had been so long, it was almost a relief. So long she had not dared to use the thing! So long she had buried every hint of magic around her, telling no one but Vernon and him only when he asked why she disliked her sister coming to visit.

The clarity of the vision surprised her—a boy with untidy black hair and glasses, a boy she recognized immediately by the ugly scar marring his forehead and, more shockingly, by his bottle-green eyes. Petunia's breath stopped in her chest as she met those eyes in her vision, so like Lily's they were. Time would only strengthen the resemblance.

With another wrench she realized where he was—_Hogwarts_. He wore the uniform, smiling widely and clutching a wand in one hand. A white owl swooped down and landed on his outstretched arm, and he spoke to it softly as it preened the gorgeous white feathers.

No, Petunia thought desperately. No, no, no.

She tried to thrust the crystal ball away, but it was not done yet. Harry, or what would someday be Harry, disappeared into the mists, and another face swam before her own, one that to this day haunted her nightmares and had terrified her into cutting all ties with Lily for fear that she herself would be killed too.

Through the green mists Lord Voldemort's snakelike eyes peered down at her, and he spoke—"The Dark Lord will rise again!"

The crystal ball dropped from her fingers and Petunia sat, shaking, on the couch in the familiar house on Privet Drive.

She knew as surely as she knew the sun would rise in the morning that the second vision was a true one—He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named _would _return.

Harry had already escaped him once. Petunia knew that he would not be allowed to escape once more… unless he could be hidden. Hidden as she had hidden, tucked away in the Muggle world with the safety of plain mundane life blanketing her.

"These visions we see, they are only shadows… possibilities. They are not prophecy."

John's words came back to her; she wondered at their truth, when he himself had turned out to be so false. But they had come from the time before he had turned on her; perhaps, they were worth remembering. Perhaps she could change the vision—keep her nephew from dying as her sister had died.

She made her decision in that moment—he must not be allowed to know anything about the wizarding world. He would be kept from attending Hogwarts, even if they sent him one of those damnable letters, and he would be a Muggle through and through. Petunia did not think she could love him—Harry was a reminder of too many things she wished buried forever—but she could keep him alive.

For Lily, she would keep him alive, and hope that however the future came to pass, it would pass him safely by.

She picked the crystal ball up and, grabbing a jacket from the closet under the stairs, went outside. There in the back garden, under the velvet night sky, she quietly buried the crystal beneath the hedge.

It was not until she had put the spade back in the shed and was slipping back inside that she remembered another voice from the past, this time her own:

"What if you See the future and you think something will change it, but it turns out to make the very thing you wanted to avoid happen anyway?"

"That is the risk we take," she said out loud, and went up the stairs and back to bed.

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End file.
